New York Sun Editorial 1897
Dear Editor! I am 8 years old. Some of my friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, "If you see it in The Sun, it's so." Please tell me the truth: Is there a Santa Claus?
-Virginia O'Hanlon
Virginia,
Your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! How dreadful would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias.
There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal life with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished..
Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Cluas. The most real things the world are those that neither children nor men can see...Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world...Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside the curtain and view and picture the supernatural beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
No Santa Claus! Thank God! He lives and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.
Being with people who love and appreciate me no matter what, people who care when I'm not there and love me even when I disappear for awhile, spending time with them gives me more faith and hope than anything else in the overally-sensationalized, commercialized, all-together beat-to-death holiday we call Christmas. Thank you to everyone who has made an imprint in my life. You are my reason to celebrate Christmas and I love you.
Merry Christmas Eve.