Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus - OpEd

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus

“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”

It started with a little girl named Virginia in 1897 struggling with her faith in Santa Claus. Santa had always been good to her but not to all her classmates. Considering the disparity created doubt in her mind. As was the custom in her family whenever they wanted to have a reliable answer to any question, she wrote to the Question and Answer column in the New York Sun. All really difficult questions at The Sun found there way to Francis P. Church who wrestled with how to respond to Virginia's question. He ultimately decided to handle her question head on. An excerpt from his now famous response goes something like this:

“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....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 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....The external light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished....No Santa Claus? Thank God! He lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.”

Not only did that response settle the matter for her, it settled it for much of the nation which reprinted the column from the Sun coast to coast in the tens of thousands. It certainly settles it for me too, but regrettably our national elites, grown cynical in their worldly palaces, have failed to learn faith’s lessons. They have grown insensitive to the world of faith.

For most Americans faith continues to fill an abiding role in our lives. The respect for the values of our ancestors is the rock upon which this nation was founded. For the sophisticates who control much of our media, not only must Santa be relegated to a bygone era, but all religious figures are but a figment of our craving. They save their finest vitriol however for Christ. One national talk show host declared on a nationally televised show that Christians and others who are religious suffer from a neurological disorder that “stops people from thinking”. In his view evangelicals are an “embarrassment”. As former Vice President Dan Quayle puts it, “What the media wants and what the media demands of Christians is very simply this: your silence”.

I am thankful to live in a land where this media bigwig can voice his opinion, but appalled that he and his cohorts feel free to discourage the rest of us from openly building our daily lives around our faith. As Ronald Reagan put it, “Without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure.” And as another commenter noted, “This shift away from the Judeo-Christian basis for law and the shift away from the {proper reading of} the restraints of The Constitution automatically militates against religious liberty.” President Washington in his farewell address also advised us that “…Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports…Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.” For Washington religion and morality were the “great pillars of human happiness”. It is no less so today.

To suggest that because Santa is associated in the minds of the public with a Christian holiday, commercial enterprises should no longer have him at the center of the celebration of this season of holiday and joy is foolish to the extreme. Watching this from above, our forefathers must think we have lost our minds. The most central freedom is to worship as we wish, and indeed, we worship not only on our knees but in our celebrations. I mean no offense to those who believe differently when I say “Merry Christmas”. It is a reflection of this joyous season which we all share regardless of our religious beliefs. As a nation we will be better off when we can unashamedly accept our differences and celebrate them rather than hide them for fear we will offend.

Tolerance is not denial. Faith and its active expression are at the center of our national values. Though beliefs differ from one of us to another, our respect for the importance of joyous exercise of our strongly held beliefs is the rock to which we cling. Yes, Virginia there is a Santa Claus.

May I wish you Merry Christmas…..and bless you every one!

_._

Robert E. Freer, Jr., an attorney, former general counsel of Kimberly-Clark Corporation and sometimes federal government official is President and CEO of The Free Enterprise Foundation, a tax-exempt think tank located at The Citadel dedicated to the study of Ethics, Civic Responsibility, Leadership and Enterprise Best Practice. Mr. Freer is also a visiting professor and The John S. Grinalds Leader in Residence at The Citadel’s School of Business Administration.