“Yes, Virginia, There IS a Santa Claus.”
Those seven little words, written more than 110 years ago to a little girl from Manhattan’s West Ninety-Fifth Street, have taken on legendary proportions.
The story begins in 1897, when Virginia O’Hanlon, the daughter of Dr. Philip O’Hanlon, a coroner’s assistant on the Upper West Side, wrote the following letter to the editors of the now defunct New York Sun newspaper:
“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?”
The now famous response, penned by veteran newsman Francis Pharcellus Church, appeared on the editorial page of The Sun on September 21, 1897, under the headline “Is There a Santa Claus?” Though the unsigned editorial ran in the page’s eighth slot, below even a piece extolling the newly invented “chainless bicycle,” it has gone on to become the most reprinted editorial ever run in any English language newspaper. Now an indelible part of U.S. Christmas lore, the editorial’s message was incredibly moving to many readers at the time of its publication, and remains so to this day.
For his part, Church remained anonymous with respect to his famous editorial until after his death in 1906. Many claimed that The Sun reprinted the piece every Christmas until it folded in 1949, but history tells a different story. American University professor Dr. W. Joseph Campbell recently revealed that the paper resisted reader requests to reprint the piece for more than a decade, and did so reluctantly even then. It was only in the 1920s that the famous editorial became an annual staple.
That didn’t stop Virginia O’Hanlon (later Douglas) from becoming something of a minor celebrity. Until her death in 1971, Virginia was interviewed by news media all over the country year after year during the holiday season, and received countless letters from admirers. A school principal by career, with a doctorate from Fordham University, Virginia felt the piece had been a positive influence in her life.
“The older I grow, the more I realize what a perfect philosophy it is for life,” she told an interviewer from CBC radio in 1963.
Here is the full text of Church’s famous letter:
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 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 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.
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.
Jaime McLeod is the Web Content Editor for the Farmers' Almanac. She is a longtime journalist who has written for a wide variety of newspapers, magazines, and websites, including MTV.com. She enjoys the outdoors, loves eating organic food, and is interested in all aspects of natural wellness.
If you notice a hole in the upper left-hand corner of your Farmers' Almanac, don't return it to the store! That hole isn't a defect; it's a part of history. Starting with the first edition of the Farmers' Almanac in 1818, readers used to nail holes into the corners to hang it up in their homes, barns, and outhouses (to provide both reading material and toilet paper). In 1910, the Almanac's publishers began pre-drilling holes in the corners to make it even easier for readers to keep all of that invaluable information (and paper) handy.
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