Recently, my 12-year-old daughter Jordynn was talking with one of her friends while they were playing an online game together, and her friend told her Santa Claus isn't real. Of course, this all happened within earshot of my seven-year-old daughter Scarlett. Seeing a look of horror on her sister’s face, Jordynn instantly told her friend, that yes, Santa is real, and if anyone would know the answer, it would be me. Since I work in the media, she figures I would have the answers, or at least know who to talk with to find out the answers.
It got me thinking about how many people don’t believe in Santa, the man who embodies the meaning of giving and charity.
In today’s day and age, where there is an abundance of information literally at the fingertips of nearly everyone, people have become skeptical. They have stopped believing what they cannot see. Unless they read it on Facebook or Twitter, or it was sent to them on Snapchat or TikTok, many kids dismiss what they don’t know. They think nothing is incomprehensible to their little minds. The thing is, all minds are little, whether it is one of a child or an adult. In this great universe of ours, humanity is but a speck of dust, especially as we try to grasp everything around us. In fact, there is too much for us to try to understand to ever say we are truly knowledgeable.
I sat down with both of my girls and told them, yes, there is a Santa Claus. Life wouldn’t be much fun if there wasn’t a Santa Claus. If Santa weren’t real, then what does that say about everything we see when we put down our smartphones and our tablets and walk away from the computers and televisions?
What about love? Joy? Happiness? We know all those to be real because we feel them, yet we cannot see them. We can’t see the air we breathe, yet we know it is real. We can’t see our thoughts, but yet, they are still there.
When we rely solely on what we can see, read, or hear, we miss out on much of the world. In fact, part of the happiness in life is the experience of feeling, of believing something is there, even though we cannot prove it. We don’t need to prove those things are real. We know they are, just as a young child knows Santa is real.
To not believe in Santa Claus is like saying the Easter Bunny, who brings those baskets of treats every spring, or the tooth fairy who stealthily leaves a surprise for children who lose a tooth, don’t exist.
You could set up a camera in the living room, looking to record whether or not Santa comes down the chimney on Christmas Eve, and not see a thing. What would that prove? No one ever sees Santa Claus on Christmas Eve, unless he wants to be seen. This doesn’t mean Santa doesn’t exist. There is much in the world we cannot see, but does exist. Things scientists debate about and talk about for decades, which can’t be seen but are believed to be there. No one doubts when a scientist says it is there. So why should we dismiss the beliefs of a child when it comes to Santa?
No Santa Claus?!? What would this world be without him? He embodies the concepts of charity, generosity, happiness, and joy. He is a man who selflessly works to provide joy and merriment on one night a year to billions of children around the world, without asking for a reward other than a smile on the face of a child on Christmas morning.
Yes, Jordynn and Scarlett, there is a Santa Claus. As long as there is a spirit of giving, of joy, of love, of happiness, he will exist. We may never see him, no matter how much technology we have or use, but he will exist, from now, until the end of time.
***Adapted from the New York Sun editorial Yes, Virginia, There Is A Santa Claus (1897)