Christmas by Forbes Bruce David

Author:Forbes, Bruce David
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of California Press

A picture is worth a thousand words, they say; through his illustrations, Nast substantially expanded the lore about Santa.

Francis Church. Another major contributor to the growing Santa Claus phenomenon, measured by popular response, was a newspaper editorial written in answer to a child’s question. In the fall of 1897 the New York Sun received a letter from an eight-year-old girl, Virginia O’Hanlon, asking if there really was a Santa Claus. Her mailing address was West 95th Street, New York City (where else?). An editorial writer quickly wrote a response in one afternoon, and its initial appearance on September 21, 1897, was nothing special. “It was the seventh article on the page and ran below commentaries on New York and Connecticut politics, the strength of the British navy, chainless bicycles, and a Canadian railroad to the Yukon.”16 It was not even published during the Christmas season. The editorial was picked up and reprinted seemingly everywhere, and the New York Sun began a tradition of republishing the editorial every year until the newspaper went out of business in 1950. Movies, a musical, and even a cantata were based on the instant journalistic classic, “Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus.”

The New York Sun did not identify the author of its editorials with a byline, so only upon the death of Francis Pharcellus Church (1839–1906) did the public learn his name. He was a lifelong journalist, the son of a minister, and had no children. Church’s editorial appealed to faith and mystery, arguing that many aspects of life merit belief even when we cannot see them.

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see….

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 Virginia. 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….

Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside [the veil covering the unseen] … 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.17

Critics have attacked the editorial for advocating blind faith, and it did indeed argue for “childlike faith” although, it should be noted, nothing explicitly Christian. Church’s opinion piece contained no reference to the birth of Jesus or any part of the nativity story. It was a child-centered editorial, but the little essay clearly resonated with a general public of all ages, arguably because adults also yearned for a sense of wonder.

By the late 1800s, images of and references to Santa Claus

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