Roy Exum
This is happening to me more and more. I now realize almost every day what an incredible life I have lived. I remember having to use an encyclopedia, how to find a book in a library using the Dewey Decimal System, how to hitch a mule to a wagon and so many hundreds of things my grandchildren will never know. Are you kidding? I was born before color TV! And I remember sitting on the living room floor in front of a real fire and the very distinctive smell of freshly-cut pine and spruce and magnolia leaves on the mantle. Holly sprigs would be everywhere and not any plastic at all!
I remember sitting around our huge dining room table with my three brothers and two sisters during Christmas Week and right before the blessing, my dad would read something “Christmas-y.” On one night every year we’d cut out almost every light in the house and my older brother Kinch and I would carry two flaming candelabras in from the kitchen as everybody sang ‘Silent Night.’
I thought a lot of the pageantry was pretty stupid back then and while I’d apologize to any of my friends who joined us at the table, every one of them would tell me how cool they thought Christmas around my family was and soon they had the Scrooge talked out of me. One of life’s greatest truths is that you never know how badly you miss so many things until each has vanished.
All three of my brothers are gone now and my sisters live out of town, but I still remember each of their faces around the table and where each of us would sit. When I was in the second grade, it was right after Thanksgiving that word got around the playground ole Santa Claus wasn’t exactly a fat man who could come through chimney soot and still look shiny.
So as soon as I got home Pop and I talked it over and he posed the question: “Think this way: If you believe there is a Santa Claus I suspect he’ll be here sometime Tuesday night … If you don’t believe in Santa Claus, I suspect he’ll pass you by. Now then, what do you believe, Pilgrim?” he said with a laugh.
We never needed to discuss it again. Ever. But during Christmas Week that year, my Dad told us about Virginia O’Hanlon, a little girl in New York, who wrote a letter to the newspaper (The New York Sun) because the child knew the newspaper wouldn’t lie to her. He then read what I will always believe is the most wonderful editorial that was ever written, and it immediately became a family favorite every Christmas.
Curiously my father didn’t mention “Yes, Virginia” appeared in the Sun on Sept. 21, 1897, or that every time I would read it or hear it I would find it so fresh and fitting I’d be sure the ink wouldn’t yet be dry. So go get a glass of egg nog, or maybe some of Baird’s egg custard … you are fixing to learn that Santa Claus is, indeed, very real:
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“IS THERE A SANTA CLAUS?”
We take pleasure in answering thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our 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
115 West Ninety Fifth Street
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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.
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.
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"Is There a Santa Claus?" reprinted from the September 21, 1897, number of The New York Sun.
royexum@aol.com