Opinion : What I\'ve learned while sitting next to Santa

I was only in this business a year or so when I realized that the philosophy of journalism was changing -- for the worst.

I saw a quiz that some so-called professor had given his students. The quiz was actually a set of sentences, each of which contained several errors. The whole exercise was quite silly; the sentences had a combination of third-grade grammar and obvious journalistic no-nos.

One of the sentences went something like this: "Every year, Santa Claus visits every child in the world."

That sentence is wrong, said the professor, because we cannot say that Santa visits every child in the world.

That politically-correct but just plain wrong argument is very different from the historical response to a little girl's question 114 years ago.

On Sept. 21, 1897, 8-year-old Virginia O'Hanlon wrote to the New York Sun, asking if Santa Claus is real.

"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, 115 West Ninety-Fifth Street

I do not know how I would have answered that question, but I am quite sure I would not have answered it with the immortal words of Francis Pharcellus Church:

"No Santa Claus? Thank God, he lives, and he lives forever…"

I wonder what that professor would have tried to tell Francis P. Church.

I know it is a challenge for us in the media, in a world full of non-believers to avoid offending someone by what we say or write about Mr. Claus.

In fact, a TV anchorwoman in Chicago got in big trouble a few days ago when she said "There is no Santa. He does not come down the chimney or bring you anything."

She apologized the next day.

A silly superintendent in Saugus, Maryland, in what one school board member later called "political correctness gone awry," told Santa to stay away from his students this year, citing the "separation of church and state." But after a public outcry, he changed his mind. Santa was welcome in the Saugus schools this week.

I can tell you, despite what these people have said, that Santa is real.

I sit next to him every Friday morning. I do. Really. Yes, that Santa; the one who rode into town on the fire truck that Thursday night.

Santa tells me and the other guys around the table about his experiences, and about what he wishes parents would do differently when they bring children to visit him.

"If you child is afraid, don’t force him to sit on my lap," said Santa. "Just hold him near me and let me talk to him for a moment, and offer him a candy cane." (Santa also strongly encourages the teaching of respect for the beard.)

He also reminds us to call him by name when we see him in his red suit.

I'd love to write a response to that professor, the superintendent or the news anchor who talked too much about Santa. But nothing I could write could be as accurate, or as inspiring, as the immortal words of Frank Church:

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 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.