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Here’s the full text of “Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus,” which articulates for me why we have to believe, love, and hope even when our cynical and depressed brains don’t want to:
“Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists 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 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 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 man 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, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.”
posted December 26, 2006 at 8:02 am
Of course there is a Santa Claus. Can you prove there is not? There are more examples than one can imagine that cannot be seen and barely explained, only to the best of our reasoning, such as the atom, the electron, photons. In a more literary, mystical sense, we can’t prove God exists or many of life’s mysteries. But many of us believe in God in some way, nonetheless. When one gives up on the mystery of life, trying to see life as a child once in a while, there is not a lot left. Mystery is all around us. A moment ago I saw a gorgeous crescent moon. One sees a fabulous sunset. A small child laughs freely about something. We should be so free. Yes, we need mystery in life and yes, there is a Santa Claus. JAD
posted December 26, 2006 at 11:18 am
SAnta Claus is never seen when arduously looked for, but he arrives with his overstuffed bag of gifts for every believer, even those plagued with skepticism born of the harsh realities of life stripped of mystery. The veil and mysttery of the divine are always present and we must propel ourselves through fear, doubt, ennui, and more by the merest gossamer of faith always holding on in the darlest of times. Santa Claus, after all, wants to give away all of his gifts. He’s not scrooge! Heaven forbid.