Yes Virginia
There Is A Santa Claus
In 1897, an eight-year-old girl named Virginia O'Hanlon wrote a letter to The New York Sun asking: "Please tell me the truth: is there a Santa Claus?" The answer she received--"Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus"--is one of the most widely reprinted newspaper editorials of all time, appearing in dozens of languages, and in books, movies, posters, and greeting cards. The author of "Yes, Virginia," veteran newsman and Sun editorial writer Francis Pharcellus Church, turned out a 500-word reply, printed on September 21, 1897, on page six of the paper, with no byline.
"Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus," Church wrote. "He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give 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."
The editorial was destined to live on, far beyond Church's death in 1906; The Sun's in 1950, and even beyond Virginia O'Hanlon Douglas, who grew up to become an educator in New York, and died in 1971.
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
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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