Here Comes Santa Claus!

Dear Members, Alumni, & Friends of the JSMT:

I have returned to the office after a successful surgery on November 20^th and recovery at home during my subsequent medical leave. Quotemail will appear in your emailbox on the first three Fridays in December, then take a hollydaze hiatus until early January, when it will resume its regular fortnightly schedule. During the month of December, we’ll be sharing some poetry and prose about various cross-cultural aspects of the holiday season – stories and tales that make this time of year bright with hope and joy amid the darkness and cold that herald the approach of the Midwinter Solstice on December 21^st.

This week, we have two pieces to share about the hollydaze gift-giver who is most familiar in North America – Santa Claus. First of all, I’d like to share with you the most famous newspaper editorial in American history – to remind us all that we have a wonderful opportunity to share our stories, insights, and encouragement with a world that stands in desperate need of HOPE. And now (drumroll, please) – without further delay (cue the spotlight) – here’s the most famous newspaper editorial in American history!

“Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus”

Source: http://www.newseum.org/yesvirginia/

[Eight-year-old Virginia O'Hanlon wrote a letter to the editor of New York's Sun, and the quick response was printed as an unsigned editorial Sept. 21, 1897. The work of veteran newsman Francis Pharcellus Church has since become history's most reprinted newspaper editorial, appearing in part or whole in dozens of languages in books, movies, and other editorials, and on posters and stamps.]

“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”

VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except [what] 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.

Selections from My Remarks at the ACES Honors Symposium

Friday, April 13^th, 2007

        In L. Frank Baum’s classic holiday tale, The Life and Ad-ventures of Santa Claus, we meet a young man named Claus, a human foundling raised by the immortal denizens of an enchanted forest. In his young manhood, he chose to dwell among mortal humans because he wanted to share the joys of his own happy childhood with the children of humankind. At first he simply played, sang, and shared stories with the children who lived near his home in the Laughing Valley of Hohaho, but afterward, he “invented” the first toys and spread the joy of giving Yuletide gifts around the world. Un-like Gilgamesh, Claus obtained endless life within the circles of the world, when the immortals who had raised him endowed him with the Mantle of Immortality. They gave Claus such a momentous gift because Claus had seen that the lives of mortal children in that long-ago time were filled with drudgery and misery, and he had determined to correct this injustice by sharing with them the fruits of his experience – namely, that a happy childhood, filled with kindness and giving, could lay the foundation for a better world when the children grew up.

        Baum summarizes so eloquently the lessons to be drawn from his mythical biography of Santa Claus that they require no further comment on my part. He writes:

Everything perishes except the world itself and its keepers. But while life lasts, everything on Earth has its use. The wise seek ways to be helpful to the world, for the helpful ones are sure to live again. … Yet every man has his mission, which is to leave the world better, in some way, than he found it. (Book I, Chapters 6 & 7)

[Santa Claus] brought toys to the children because they were little and helpless, and because he loved them. He knew that the best of children were sometimes naughty, and that the naughty ones were often good. It is the way with children, the world over, and he would not have changed their natures had he possessed the power to do so.  And that is how our Claus became Santa Claus. It is possible for any man, by good deeds, to enshrine himself as a Saint in the hearts of the people.  (Book II, Chapter 9)

It is true that great warriors and mighty kings and clever scholars of that day were often spoken of by the people; but no one of them was so greatly beloved as Santa Claus, because none other was so unselfish as to devote himself to making others happy. For a generous deed lives longer than a great battle or a king's decree or a scholar's essay, because it spreads and leaves its mark on all nature and endures through many generations. (Book II, Chapter 11)

“In all this world there is nothing so beautiful as a happy child,” says good old Santa Claus; and if he had his way, the children would all be beautiful, for all would be happy. (Book III, Chapter 3)

Next week: poems about Yuletide traditions from Italy!

Until then, may the calendar keep bringing Happy Holidays to you! :)

Rob