"Yes,
Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" is a line from an editorial called
"Is There a Santa Claus?". The editorial appeared in the
September 21, 1897, edition of The (New York) Sun and
has since become part of popular Christmas folklore in the United
States. It is the most reprinted newspaper editorial in the English
language
In 1897, Dr. Philip O'Hanlon, a
coroner's assistant on Manhattan's Upper West Side, was asked by his then
eight-year-old daughter, Virginia O'Hanlon (1889–1971), whether Santa Claus, a legendary character, really existed. O'Hanlon suggested
she write to The Sun,
a then prominent New York City newspaper, assuring her that "If you see it
in The Sun, it's so. In so doing, Dr. O'Hanlon had unwittingly
given one of the paper's editors, Francis
Pharcellus Church, an opportunity to rise above the simple question
and address the philosophical issues behind it.
Church was a war correspondent during the American Civil War,
a time that saw great suffering and a corresponding lack of hope and faith in
much of society. Although the paper ran the editorial in the seventh place on
the page, below even one on the newly invented "chainless bicycle",
it was both noticed and well received by readers. According to an anecdote on
the radio program The Rest of the Story,
Church was a hardened cynic and an atheist who had little patience for
superstitious beliefs, did not want to write the editorial, and refused to
allow his name to be attached to the piece. More than a century later it
is the most reprinted editorial in any newspaper in the English language.
In 1971, after seeing Virginia's
obituary in The New York Times,
four friends formed a company called Elizabeth Press and published a children's
book titled Yes, Virginia that illustrated the editorial and
included a brief history of the main characters. Its creators took it to
Warner Brothers, who made an Emmy award-winning television show based on the
editorial in 1974. The History
Channel, in a special that aired on February 21, 2001, noted that
Virginia gave the original letter to a granddaughter, who pasted it in a
scrapbook. It was feared that the letter was destroyed in a house fire, but 30
years later, it was discovered intact.
A copy of the letter, hand-written by Virginia and believed
by her family to be the original, returned to them by the newspaper, was
authenticated in 1998 by Kathleen Guzman, an appraiser on the television
program Antiques Roadshow. In
2007, the show appraised its value at around $50,000.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes,_Virginia,_there_is_a_Santa_Claus
For more than 100 years, parents have debated about telling their
children that Santa is real. A single mom named Vanessa McGrady wrote into the
Washington Post about a week ago about how she handled the situation with her
daughter. Here is her answer:
“Santa is real,” I said, reaching for some
explanation of why the whole Santa/Tooth Fairy/Easter Bunny charade isn’t
actually a lie. “He’s the spirit of generosity. When kids are little, they need
a character like him to understand the concept of giving. But now that you’re
older, you don’t need him. You even get to be a Santa yourself and give things
to other people,” I told her. “So the Easter Bunny is the spirit of renewal and
springtime. And the Tooth Fairy is the spirit of your changing body. They may
not be actual creatures, but they’re real symbols about important things.
She seemed fine with this and agreed to
not tell younger kids who still believe.
The
following Christmas came amid a crush of Lands’ End catalogues. We threw our
usual party. Santa knocked on the window. He came through the door with a
booming “ho, ho, ho!” and made his way to an armchair.
Grace looked at me, clearly torn
between wanting to believe and wondering if the spirit of generosity would
still welcome her into his fold. “Mama?” she said in a small voice, “Is it okay
if I still go sit on his lap?”
“Yes
baby. Go,” I told her. She climbed up and had a whispered conversation with
Santa, sitting squarely at the intersection where magic and reality meet.
Since
then, we’ve been on a “don’t ask, don’t tell” honor system. She knows in her
logical mind that mama brings pants and nearly everything else. Still, I’m
certain that she’ll leave out cookies and milk for Santa — just to cover all
the bases. Because you never know.
Now that a few lucky members of our society have received the
coronavirus vaccine, our society will gradually return to “normal”. One sign of
that normality came from overseas, when members of
the choir of Notre Dame Cathedral sang inside the medieval Paris landmark for
the first time since last year’s devastating fire for a special Christmas Eve
concert.
Accompanied by an acclaimed cellist and
a rented organ, the singers performed beneath the cathedral’s stained-glass
windows amid the darkened church, which is transitioning from being a
precarious hazardous clean-up operation to becoming a massive reconstruction
site. The choir initially planned to bring in 20 singers but for safety reasons
they were limited to eight.
The concert — including “Silent Night” in English and French, “The Hymn of the Angels,” and even “Jingle Bells” — was recorded earlier this month and broadcast just before midnight Thursday. The public was not allowed and isn’t expected to see the insides of Notre Dame until at least 2024.
It IS true that Christmas this year will be a lot different
than the ones we experienced in the past. No visits to the family farm in
Wisconsin, no large gatherings in churches, no huge Christmas dinners with
family and friends, and no visits with Santa in the malls of America.
Despite the fact that we won’t have the usual trappings of Christmas
this year, we’ll always have memories of our Christmas celebrations of our past
– and that’s Christmas to me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFjdfjrtf1Q&list=RDpFjdfjrtf1Q&start_radio=1
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