I love the tradition of Christmas, and the magic of the season. This year because of events in a small Connecticut town, it may be difficult to capture and hold the spirit of the season. But if there are little ones in our life...well...it's our job. Just as it was for a bemused newspaper man named Francis Church, when the mail arrived one day in 1897.
It was more than 3 months before christmas…when an 8 year old new york city girl named virginia o hanlon came crying to her father. She had been told by some older, less fortunate children…that there was no santa claus….how did dad deal with that uncomfortable moment….he passed the buck…instructing his daught to write to the new york sun..then one of the leading newspapers of the day

Virginia’s lettter to the editor read like this:

“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 is so. Please tell me the truth is there a santa claus….”

The letter found its way to an aging journalist named Francis P. Church. The son of a minister..he had covered the bloody civil war, and had seen and covered the best and the worst in humanity for decades….his reply came in the form of a page one editorial in which Church…a dedicated optimist gave this now famous response:

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 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 eternal 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 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 may 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, 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, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

The editorial ran year after year until The New York Sun folded in 1949----Francis P. Church lived for 9 years before dying childless.

Virginia O’Hanlon grew up to be a New York City school teacher….and passed away at the age of 81 in 1971….

And today,  these many years later----we continue to foster that legacy of optimism, hope and good cheer that marks the holiday season….This year, it's more needed than ever...

From Crane’s Corner…to your home…Merry Christmas…