‘Thank God, Santa lives and lives for ever’

Press, 18 December 1986, Page 12

‘Thank God, Santa lives and lives for ever’

How real is Santa Claus? ROBIN CORRY finds an answer to the question parents are asked every Christmas.

On Christmas Eve, children the world over, unable to sleep with excitement, will be straining their ears for the sound of sleigh bells. The sound that means Santa Claus is on his way. But who is this strange old man, dressed in red and white, who arrives by reindeer, comes down the chimney and leaves presents?

long before Christianity. There were, many thousands of years ago, tribes living in Siberia with holy men called shamans. They used reindeer for transport and food, clothing and utensils and, like most Northern races, they held a midwinter festival. And the shamans provided the only known means of intoxication for the festivities, a mushroom which caused spectacular visions and a sensation of flying. The shamans wore bright red costumes with white frills, and lived in underground caves. The only entrance

was through the roof — or chimney. Sadly, there are always some children who try to convince younger ones that Father Christmas does not exist. That is how eight-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon began to have doubts, and how one of the loveliest Christmas messages of all came to be written.

Today’s version of Father Christmas comes from the Dutch, who took their Yule-tide customs, and their Saint Nicholas, to America 300 years ago. But the legend dates back much earlier, probably

ment before the First World War. He suggested she write to the New York Sun.

Virginia was upset after older children at school had poured scorn on her belief in Father Christmas. So she asked her father, a surgeon in the New York Police Depart-

Virginia, who died at 81, said: “Dad swore by that paper. He used to say, ‘They always get it right’.” She wrote: “Dear Editor: I am eight years old. Some of my friends say there is no Santa Claus. Is this true?” Her letter reached the desk of Frank Church, a veteran, world-weary newsman, hardened and cynical after a lifetime reporting man’s inhumanity to man. But as he read it his heart went out to

the worried little girl he had never met. Suddenly filled with an inspiration he had not known in years, he began to write:

lect 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.

existence tolerable. We should have no enjoyment except in sense and sight. The external light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

“Dear Virginia: Your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the scepticism of a sceptical age. They do not believe anything except what they see.

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.

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.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe that there are fairies.

You might get your papa to hire men to watch 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?

In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intel-

There would be no childlike faith, no poetry, no romance to make this

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 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, or 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 supernatural beauty and glory that lies beyond. Is it at 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 ten times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.” Copyright DUO.