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
115 West Ninety Fifth Street
Virginia O'Hanlon was a real person who, by all accounts. really did ask her father if Santa was a real person. Her father Philip, a prominent Manhattan physician, suggested his daughter write the newspaper and ask them to answer the question.
The letter was written in July of 1897, but the editorial in the New York Sun wasn't published until September 27 of that year. The Sun rarely gave a byline to editorials as is the practice today. It wasn't until 1906, after the death of the author, Francis Pharcellus Church, that authorship of what has become the most reprinted editorial in newspaper history became known.
A former Civil War correspondent, Church received the assignment to write a response to the little girl. His 416 words not only caught a moment in time at the turn of the 20th century but also speak to all of us today as we try to navigate a cynical, uncertain world.
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 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 external light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
It was believed by many that the editorial had been penned by a long-time editor of the New York Sun, Charles Anderson Dana. Why the delay between the letter being sent in July and the editorial being published in September is unknown to this day.
Many parents are forever grateful to Church for clarifying the unclarifiable.
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 you 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.
At the time Virginia wrote the letter, she was eight years old. Did the explanation satisfy her? In interviews much later, Virginia O'Hanlon spoke of how pleased she was to see her letter in print and hoped that everyone would take the words to heart and believe in Santa Claus and what Christmas stands for.
O'Hanlon grew up and graduated from college, getting her master's degree in education and going on to become a schoolteacher in New York City public schools.
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, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, 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 lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.
Church couldn't foresee the spread of cynicism beyond his own 19th-century worldview. But he could surely sense changes coming. Belief in Santa Claus may have lessened in the modern age but what Santa Claus stands for can never be lost.
If that happens, childhood itself will be dead and the world of dreams and fantasy will die with it.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member