A special editorial for the Christmas season
The Christmas season is a very special time for me and my family, as it is for many. My Dad especially liked Christmas. I believe he loved seeing the family all together on Christmas Day, the special time of the year of giving.
My Dad owned several newspapers and always liked to have the famous editorial, “Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus,” written by Francis Pharcellus Church and first published in the New York newspaper The Sun on September 21, 1897.
In 1897, Virginia wrote the newspaper editor to ask if there was a Santa Claus because The Sun, according to her father, Phillip O’Hanlon, was the most reliable newspaper in New York City. Virginia had
In her letter, Virginia wrote that her father had told her, “If you see it in The Sun it’s so.” O’Hanlon said the newspaper may be too busy to respond but to go ahead and write one and not be disappointed if she did not get a response.
It became one of the most reprinted newspaper editorials in English, and it has been made into a movie, TV show, and musical and translated into more than 20 languages. It was one of my Dad’s favorites in his newspaper’s Christmas special edition, filled with Dear Santa letters from local children. It seemed appropriate to republish the editorial in today’s edition. I hope you enjoy Virginia’s letter to the Editor, the response, and The South Reporter’s Christmas special edition.
Yes Virginia, There Is A Santa Claus
By Francis P. Church
Dear Editor,
I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say that there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, “If you see it in the Sun, it is so.” Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?
Virginia,
Your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except what 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 to our life its highest beauty and joy.
Alas! How dreary 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 light 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 all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove?
Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see.
Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders that are unseen and unseeable in the world.
You tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, or even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, and romance can push aside that 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 as real and abiding.
No Santa Claus? Thank God he lives and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, maybe ten times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the hearts of children.