Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus

I am overcome with gratitude and humility for the kindness and generosity that has been shown to us this Christmas season. I have never experienced anything like it in all my life. Maybe it's this town, or maybe it's just God pouring out His blessings on us for trying to what's right with our finances. Whatever it is, we are so thankful and look forward to the time when we can pay it forward.

Just in the last couple of days we have received an anonymous delivery of meat, an unmarked bag full of 5 wrapped gifts, and a couple very generous financial contributions. Each time I have discovered these gifts, I am just flabbergasted at the charity, the pure love of Christ, that people have flowing through them.

One of the Christmas books the girls and I have read is called Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus.

In 1897 a little girl wrote a letter to the New York Sun newspaper.

Dear Editor:

I am eight 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

The Sun's response perfectly expresses how I feel:

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the
skepticism of a skeptical age...

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...

The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men
can see. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the
world...

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.

4 comments:

Lori Gerten said...

It must feel so good to have such a caring and loving community. Definately Christ has a hand in this.

Tobi said...

I love this story. I'm so happy that there are some people out there that are feeling the Christmas Spirit.

The Queen Vee said...

Excellent tradition reading this story each year. Merry Christmas once again to you brave souls living in Wyoming.....burr!

Becky in Wyo said...

I have many failures as a parent, but I think one of them has been the whole Santa thing. I've never really played it up, and when Dani asked me several years ago if Santa was real, I debated about whether or not to tell her the truth. I was thinking I didn't want her to confuse her belief in Santa with her belief in Christ, and I wanted to set the record straight that Christ is real, but Santa is a lovely fable and tradition. Fun, warm, but not real, not the way Christ is. Once I told her, she was sad, and said she wished I hadn't told her. Sigh. Oh, well. I don't know. I hope I'm not too Grinchy.