A Product Of The Fifties In Fort Bragg, California by Connie Webb

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Fred Astaire - Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town

Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus

In 1897, an eight year old girl wrote a letter to the New York Sun asking if Santa Claus existed. The newspaper's response became part of America's holiday history.

Little girls letter:

Some of my little 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.

115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET

Response from The Sun:

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 your 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 in 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 there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You may 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, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal 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.

(This was written by 58 year old Francis P. Church. Read more at Suite101: Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus: Young Miss O'Hanlon's Question Led to a Famous American Editorial http://www.suite101.com/content/yes-virginia-there-is-a-santa-claus-a73875#ixzz17b3odCvr)