Yes, Virginia...

...there is a Santa Claus.

I know, I know, we've all heard this line a thousand times and know the story of a little girl a long, long time ago who wrote a letter to a newspaper asking if the big man did, indeed, exist. But how many of us have read that letter? Macy's recently made a commercial using excerpts from this letter to promote a charity drive and, after I finished weeping on the couch*, I turned to the internet to read, in full, the answer that had inspired such emotion.

While I only occasionally dabble in the corny here at MM, I have included the whole letter here in today's post so that we can all take a moment and appreciate the beauty, not only of the writing (it really is poetry), but of the message. Why, as adults, do we only believe what we can see? A dose of childlike faith, faith that the world is inherently a good place and we all just want safety and happiness for our families, as mentioned in this letter would do us all a lot of good when we interact with the people around us.

And if that makes me corny, screw you.

"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."

*I have highlighted, in blue, the line that actually made my snort as I cried. Hubby's nickname for me? The Open Wound. He, with all of his non-crying, has a heart made of stone.