Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus

The story behind this classic newspaper article is that in 1897, the New York Sun received a letter from an eight-year-old girl, Virginia O’Hanlon, asking whether Santa Claus exists. Her father encouraged her to send the question to The Sun, "because if you see it in The Sun, it's so."

It is probably the most famous letter to the editor ever published and because of that, it is also the most reprinted newspaper editorial in the English language. It has also been re-published in book and movie format.

Francis P. Church of The Sun replied with an editorial that has become a well-known Christmas classic. His answer gave a resounding, "Yes!" by focusing on concepts like love, generosity, devotion, beauty, joy, and faith. 

More than 120 years after the original editorial was published, these sentiments still encourage us today during the season of hope.

The popular Christmas editorial reads:

Is There a Santa Claus?

We take pleasure in answering at once and thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Sun:

"Dear Editor - I am 8 years old. 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, 195 West Ninety-Fifth Street"

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, is 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 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 Virginia. 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 man 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 will live 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.

I hope this timeless piece serves as a reminder of some of the most important parts of the Christmas season. "The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor man can see."

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