Thank you Mr. Church. I still believe in Santa

There are certain stories and poems that I cannot read to my children without crying a little; the Velveteen Rabbit, You are my I love you, The Little Match Girl.  I get it, sweet sentiments go directly to my tear ducts.   But, I have been trying to figure out why The “Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus” letter does it to me.   I think I will make it through.  I make myself all stoic and like a tear bomb, BOOM!  Every time I get to the “Ah, Virginia, in all the world there is nothing else real and abiding”, the bomb releases itself.

The first time I ever had the letter read to me I was four.  My Aunt and uncle gave me this beautiful Christmas book and my Mom read it to me every year.  I loved it as a child.  It was proof, it made sense, of course Santa exists how could he not?  Even at the bitter age of 9 or 10 when I confronted my Mom first about the Easter Bunny, then the Tooth Fairy and finally the biggie, this letter comforted me because I understood then it was the spirit of giving that lives in the embodiment of Santa.  So the letter stayed true.  It still made sense to my 10 year old heart.

The book stayed with me, packed away in a box of things I could never let go of, even through college years, 1^st jobs, marriage, and finally when I found out I was going to be a Mom myself.  By this time it was buried in a mountain of newer memories so I went franticly through the attic looking for it.  In the 30 years since I had read the book, life had happened.  I had discovered the world is not such a joyous giving place.  People blow up other people on purpose.  People shoot up schools.  People often spread fear and hatred.  Cynicism had entered my brain.  I plucked the dusty book from the box and went off to read its contents to my babies.

There is no better feeling then sharing the things you really love with your children, even when they are still to young to realize it.   I opened the book and slipped into the blissful state of overlapping childhoods.   The illustrations are old school, intricate etchings of fairies and elves with a few full color photos that pop in the perfect Technicolor way.  I read Twas’ the Night Before Christmas as if recorded years earlier from the sound of my own Mother’s voice.

I turn the page and start into the story about a young girl who wrote to the New York Sun to find out if Santa really existed.   I start to read Francis P. Church’s letter but I realize, something has shifted.  I am no longer reading this from a child’s perspective.  I am reading it as an adult.   For the first time ever, I am reading it from the perspective of the writer; a writer who had been a war correspondent during the Civil War.  Francis P. Church lived through one of the worst times in our nation’s history and he saw it first hand on the battlefields.  I can imagine nothing worse.

For the first time ever I feel every word of this letter.  This letter reassures a little girl that Santa exists and it reassures 1897 New York that hope exists.  I cry because in 2014 I am assured hope exists.  The world is full of a lot of bad stuff but it is filled with good to.  As long as we see the good, as long as we share love and kindness and generosity, Santa, will always be real.