Santa Claus Editorial

Most of you know of the eight-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon who wrote a letter to the editor of the New York Sun and the response in an unsigned editorial on September 21, 1897. It has since become history’s most reprinted newspaper editorial.

Recently reading an excerpt reminded me that Santa Claus doesn’t really come down the chimney with toys at all. Rather he magically appears in our homes and hearts. Please enjoy the newsman’s partial response to Virginia. And, keep a watch out for Santa’s very large bag of generosity, kindness and childlike awe on Christmas morn.

“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 a 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.

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.”

Happy Holidays to you and yours,