I have played Santa for generations of kids and 6 December always is a sweet trip down memory lane. I remember the one-word-answer one little girl gave when asked about her favorite food: «Wuuuscht». This means «sausage» in Swiss German. Imagine a tot of today talking so innocuously about processed meat, possibly even pork (some experts say you cannot produce a sensible sausage without pork): If not already sworn to vegetarianism she more probably than not would undergo extra reeducation by her parents. «Wuuscht» is out .
Enough already. I would like to submit the greatest text ever written on the topic of Santa Claus. Sometimes in the year 1897 in New York City, an eight-year-old girl named Virginia O’Hanlon asked her father whether Santa Claus really existed. The father dodged the issue and suggested she put the question to the newspaper «the Sun». She did and prompted the following piece, published on 21 Sep, 1897. The author’s name, Francis Pharcellus Church, was made know much later. His text is one of the most often reprinted in America.
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«Dear Editor,
I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say that there is no Santa Claus. Papa says “If you see it in the Sun, it is so.” Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?»
«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 our 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 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 that 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, or 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 supernatural beauty and glory beyond.
Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else as real and abiding.
No Santa Claus? Thank God he lives and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, maybe 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the hearts of children.»
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On the basis of my journalistic experience in Switzerland, Zurich particularly, I daresay that no present-day journalist would be able to come up with such a text. And if he did, there would be a phalanx of gatekeepers, text stylists, assistant editors, editors, editors-in-chief, tonality controllers, content managers and others, to kill the effort. And even if such a text would be greenlighted, it might no see the light of day because some higher authorities might deem it inopportune.
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Thank you, Mr. Church! You did a long-gone profession proud.