Santa

[Annabel Lee]

YES, VIRGINIA, THERE IS A SANTA CLAUS
The People’s Almanac, pp. 1358–9. (Originally published in The New York Sun in 1897.)

We take pleasure in answering thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Sun:

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.

 

[Judilyn]

We raised all 3 of ours to believe in Santa but he was never the main focus at Christmas. As soon as our kids began questioning the reality of it we told them the truth. I wanted them to hear it from me and not someone else.

 

[rwl]

"Santa,

I can't wait for you to come,
I just cant wait for you to come,
And I've got cookies.
So yummy cookies.
They're for you for when you come,
From me for you for when you come,
Because it's Christmas."

Larry - veggietales.

 

[Shekinahs]

Blessings,

I just saw this post about Santa Claus on another board and it just blew my socks off What do you think since Santa Clause is suppose to be based on Saint Nicholas?

Of course, the real question .... is he [Santa Clause] really a he?
San is used in Latin and Spanish for a male saint; while Santa is used for a female. For example, Santa Maria, and Santa Lucia, so is Santa female???
hmmmmmmmmm

~ShekinahMoon~

 

[He put me back together]

YES, VIRGINIA, THERE IS A SANTA CLAUS
The People’s Almanac, pp. 1358–9. (Originally published in The New York Sun in 1897.)

We take pleasure in answering thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Sun:

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.

Are you suggesting that we should teach our kids that faeries are responsible for the morning dew? Perhaps we should also teach them to be weary of the sight of Elves--because, you know, in the Norseman origins of Elves, seeing them at times was not a good fate.

Eloquent writers do not justify lying to one's children. We do not have the right to lie, simply because a professional writer lied to a child. To suggest that childhood joys are lost by knowledge of the TRUTH is ridiculous--to say that one must believe in Santa Claus to have a happy childhood is completely ludicrous and pathetic. I never believed in Santa Claus--my childhood was wonderful. (Although for a few hours I actually DID believe in the Easter Bunny...because of a kindergarten teacher, who refuted my claim by telling me about an aledged visit she had encountered from him. That was the day I learned that adults lie; before that, I thought that only children lied.)

Children grow better when their parents tell them the truth. Logically, they're also more likely to accept all those stories about Christ if you tell them that babies come from the womb of woman, rather than some magical bird, which I suppose must be anointed with the same stuff that makes reindeer fly. Sure, one can put a dollar under a kid's pillow in exchange for his tooth for a game, and even act as if a faery was the one who did it, but why must you INSIST that the child actually believe in little people with bug wings? How does that enhance his joy, when hopefully one day he will see through your foolishness? Which is better? Thanking God for your parents, or thanking God for an imaginary delusion? Toys come from factories. They don't come from elves. You don't have to LIE to make your kids happy. What kind of a parent requires such a thing?

 

[Polycarp1]

Shekinah, "Klaas" or Claus is the Dutch and Low German nickname for Nicholas. One of my great uncles was a man of Dutch descent named Nicholas clipped to Klaus. The Dutch-American dialect spoken in New Amesterdam referred to St. Nicholas as Sinte(r) Klaus, and the modern American "Santa Claus" is an Anglicization of that. It's pure coincidence that it is identical to the Spanish and Italian feminine form of "saint" or "holy."

Oh, and I agree wholeheartedly with what Ps139 had to say.

 

[mle]

I do not want to lie to my child. He is not old enough to know about Santa yet, though. When he is we will tell him that santa is a story character. Explaining all the tradition and fables that go along with that. It is not as though we are anti-santa, my husband even dressed the part this year for a community event, it's just that we know what God tells us regarding lieing and so we will not participate.
Emily

 

[Myah]

Well...my niece, who just turned five, recently "met" Santa (who happened to be a member of our VFD, who dyed his beard) She saw him and immediately flew into his arms, squealing. It was a precious moment, very sweet and innocent. I have no doubt that when she gets older, that such an innocent joy will fade, but I plan on treasuring that while it lasts. Eventually she'll realize that Santa is only a children's story as she gets older, but if believing in Santa brings her joy, I'll let her believe all she wants and when she asks a question about it, I'll answer it honestly.

 

[He put me back together]

I guess this brings about a philosophical and quite hypothetical question, then. If the belief that eating a bag of buttered-up theatre popcorn 3-4 times a day was the optimal diet would make one happy for, say, 7 years, would a person viewed with credibility, say, a doctor, be morally permissible to tell his patients that such a belief was true?