Santa’s story

On the eve of a long ago Christmas a little 8-year-old girl
asked her father if Santa Claus was for real because some of her
friends told her he was not.
For the answer, her father suggested she write a letter to the
local newspaper. “If it’s printed in the newspaper, it must be so,”
her father told her.
This exchange between young Virginia O’Hanlon and editor Francis
Church produced one of our most enduring Christmas time messages
and the most re-printed newspaper editorial in American journalism
history,
“Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus,” Church wrote in his New
York Sun in 1897. “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.”
Church argued how “dreary” the world would be without a Santa
Claus. “There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no
romance to make tolerable this existence,” the editor wrote.
On this Christmas Eve, 112 years after Church’s answer, we
wonder where a little girl might direct such a question. Newspapers
still get a few letters from children at this time of year
addressed to Santa Claus at the North Pole, redirected by the local
Post Office.
But these days for a serious inquiry a young child might do what
all the rest of us do when we need an instant answer. We Google
it!
If you Google the search words “Santa Claus” you will get 23
million entries or possible answers from the Internet. Clicking on
the Wikipedia entry, a young Virginia would be told that Santa
Claus is “a legendary figure in many Western Cultures” who “brings
gifts to good children” and investigates which ones have been
“naughty or nice.”
Young believers today have a more challenging terrain to cover
in search of the real Santa Claus and his wonderful story. He still
comes to town every year but his visit is often very brief, riding
on a red fire truck or stopping briefly at the annual Holiday Tree
Lighting ceremony.
The Main Street department store where there used to a Santa
Throne is long gone. Now you have to get your parents to drive you
to the Big Mall and stand in line to buy photos with the Big
Fella.
Of course, you can watch Santa Claus every night this month on
television. But some of those TV Santas can’t all be the real ones,
can they? Some of these would-be Santas don’t seem very dedicated
to the “childlike faith, poetry or romance” that Church cited in
his 1897 editorial.
If Church thought Virginia’s non-believing friends had been
“affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age” back in the days of
horse and buggy travel and no electricity, whatever would he think
of today’s commercialized Christmas?
For the record, this newspaper’s position about Santa Claus is a
“neutral” one. We would tell Virginia that, yes, the world is a
better place because of the love and generosity that the Santa
Claus story tells. The Santa that brings gifts wrapped in heartfelt
sentiments and fulfills simple pleasures is not only welcome, but
essential to our world that sometimes includes hurting, loss and
disappointment.
We would tell Virginia the truth. Most of those TV shows are
just for entertainment and for selling commercials. Have fun
watching them, but you don’t have to believe all of them.
Virginia, if you want to know the real story about Santa Claus,
there is probably only one place you can find the best answer— ask
your parents.
Your father and mother will know the truth about Santa Claus
because they learned it from their parents. Pay close attention
because you will have to repeat the story to your own children some
day.
— Rollie Atkinson