Soccer Mom: Unplugged

 

Exactly 110 years ago, 8-year-old Virginia Hanlon wrote to the (old)
New York Sun to settle a question about whether Santa Claus exists.
Many of her friends told Virginia that the answer to that question is,
"no."

Times have changed and newspapers, such as that version of the Sun,
have come and gone. But the answer, published in 1897 by Sun editorial
writer Francis P. Church, is timeless:

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by
the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except what
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 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 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 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 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 man 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 lives forever. A thousand years from now, nay, ten times ten
thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of
childhood.