Francis P. Church and the Christmas Spirit
Katie Tandler | Life Section Manager

You hear it more and more every year: Christmas has just gotten too commercialized. Every symbol of the season is plasticized and pimped out, year- in and year-out, to the general disgust of many decent folk. "It's about giving," they clamor, "not getting."

A noble claim, I suppose, but in the end, somebody gives and somebody gets and something is sold and the cycle continues on, warm fuzzy generous feelings aside. The economy benefits whether they try or not. Not that it doesn't keep them from trying.

I have something of a new theory about all this Christmas business. Something beyond the giving/getting paradox, the shameless moneymaking, and yes, something a little bit beyond the religious implications.

Christmas, to me, is about celebrating the aspects of childhood. Not just children in general, nor merely that bygone era in our own lives, but the qualities that make childhood what it is. That degree of faith, the willingness to believe in things they cannot see, the innocence and trust that seem to be so lacking in today's society. And there's also the manner in which they see things, that angle from which even the slightest thing radiates wonder. Paranoia, cynicism, blind hatred, and hopelessness are foreign concepts to them. Or at least, they ought to be. Just as the season continues to become more and more commercialized, there is another facet that is changing with the times, now more than ever: children seem to be growing up too fast.

Granted, I didn't come up with this theory entirely on my own. Last year as I was going through some old books, I found a collection of Christmas stories and poems. Browsing through it, I found something that struck me, and has stuck with me ever since, regardless of the time of year.

"Dear Editor:
I am eight 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.'"

This may already be ringing a few bells for some of you.

"Please tell me the truth. Is there a Santa Claus?
--Virginia O'Hanlon "

That famous letter was addressed to none other than Francis P. Church, a correspondent for the (now-defunct) New York Sun. His response is one of the most famous and eloquent ones in newspaper history. He answers without condescension, without evading the question or sugar-coating the answer. Church speaks nothing less than the truth.

"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."

The times have gotten no less skeptical. However, much as I'm loath to admit it, this whole Harry Potter phenomenon and a resurgence of fantasy may be a push back in the right direction. (Still, I'm not exactly wild about Harry.) A vague acceptance of the unexplainable, however, isn't quite enough. There must be a belief.

"The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see..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."

Church's response was most likely intended not just for children like Virginia, but for the adults as well. He instills the notion that perhaps we shouldn't write off this whole "Santa Claus" business so easily, that maybe it's more than a nice little story to keep the kids behaving for a month. Perhaps he does exist, but as something intangible, as that feeling that strikes otherwise rational (and perhaps grumpy) adults like Scrooge after waking from his visions, when they see the gorgeously lit trees, the gently falling snow.the aspects of the season that make the world seem big and glorious and good again.

"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."

There is too much sorrow in the world right now, too much lost faith, too much hatred and fear. Why not let childhood, that force which attacks our drab, grey, gloomy world with a deluxe 64-count box of Crayolas, take hold for a while? Why should we begrudge ourselves and our youth of this escape? What's the harm in believing?

The figure of Santa Claus has withstood the test of time for centuries. He doesn't deserve to be another victim of the present. Let Church's prediction stand, so that "a thousand years from now.nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood."

Note: Though the author is eighteen, she presently insists on maintaining a mental age of seven and a half. A precocious seven and a half, anyhow. Those interested in reading the full text of Church's editorial may find it here.