Christmas Stories: Santa “was created” to entertain the family

“Yes, Virginia …”

Virginia O’Hanlon (above) was eight years old in 1897 when she wrote a letter to the editor of New York Sun newspaper, Francis Church.

Virginia wrote: “Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Please tell me the truth: is there a Santa Claus?” Little Virginia, her letter and the answer she received will live forever in the hearts of people the world over.

Francis Pharcellus Church, a writer who specialised in theological and controversial subjects, replied to Virginia’s letter in the newspaper’s editorial.

In part, he wrote, “Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the scepticism of a sceptical age. They do not believe except in only what they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds.

The letter she penned in 1897.

“Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, 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. We would have no enjoyment, except in sense and light. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

“Not believe in Santa! You might as well not believe in fairies! 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.

“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.”

Francis Church’s reply to Virginia grips the world.

Forty years later, in 1937, Laura Virginia O’Hanlon Douglas, who had made her mark as a distinguished teacher and administrator in the New York City school system, told an audience of college students that she “was filled with doubts about Santa Claus.”

She said: “Quite naturally, I believed in Santa Claus, for he never disappointed me. But like you, I turned to those of my own generation, and so when less fortunate little boys and girls said there wasn’t any Santa, I was filled with doubts.”

Francis Church died in 1906; The New York Sun died in 1950; Virginia O’Hanlon Douglas died on May 13, 1971, aged 81.

The modern Santa Claus comes to life

The modern Santa Claus is all make believe. Wrong! Santa was invented by a prominent New York scholar and theologian in the 1800s to entertain his six young children on Christmas Eve.
His name was Dr Clement Moore.

In 1822, Dr Moore composed the lines of as poem which began with the simple ditty, “Twas the Night Before Christmas …”

“Before Moore’s idyllic poem there had been no popular image of jolly St Nick,” according to a profile on the author published a few years ago.

Dr Clement Moore encircled by his ‘friends’.

“The white beard, the sparking eyes, the ‘little round belly that shook when he laughed, little a bowl full of jelly’, were devised by Moore ‘as entertainment.’”

Ever since, the progeny of Dr Moore, and friends, have carried on the tradition of reading the poem in a “holy and timed celebration and exchanging presents they made with their own hands.”

Said Clement Clarke Moore, the poet’s namesake, “It seems to me that my great-grand father started a tradition, a spirit that tied a family together.”

He said the big worry with Christmas is that there has been “too much tampering with tradition. 

Christmas has magic expectations!

What is Christmas all about -- really?

So often we look with increasing expectation toward Christmas as a wondrous and renewing time.

And so often, when it’s over, we look back and think: “It that all? Is that what Christmas is really all about – shopping for gifts and receiving, sometimes, costly presents from others?”
Of course not.

If we think about it for a few moments, we should realise that Christmas hands us the biggest gift of all – the gift of being together and sharing happy experiences.

“My bride doll was missing.”

There are many meaningful things to do that will linger in the memory long after the gifts have been unwrapped and the excitement of the Yuletide festivities has faded.  

Australian author, Helen Townsend, once said, “Every Christmas, I asked for a bride doll. My parents couldn’t afford one; but finally, they got the money together.

“I took her down to the local sandpit to show her off. In the excitement, I left her there to go home for dinner.

“I went back and she was gone. It was devastating. This life-long dream. I owned a bride doll for two hours.”

As I said, they can be little things but they will add up to memories that will loom large in life. 

“He lives, and will live forever”