Editor’s note: The following column pays tribute to the most reprinted newspaper editorial in history, “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Clause. Virginia O’Hanlon, 8, wrote a letter to the editor of The New York Sun, and the response by newsman Francis Pharcellus Church was printed as an unsigned editorial Sept. 21, 1897.
I’m a teacher and around Christmas every year a little child in my class named Malia, or some other name, raises her hand and forlornly says that someone told her that there’s no Santa Claus. She then sadly looks up at me to reassure her that there really is a Santa.
I look down at her hopeful eyes and I know I hold that child’s heart and childhood dreams, so I always tell her of course there’s a Santa Claus, who do you think brings all the presents?
She smiles and believes.
So I begin this letter by saying, yes, Malia, there is a Santa Claus.
He is that nice, old bearded man who brings you presents down the chimney and, you know as even grown-ups know, that we need that magic to live in our heart.
We could not live without it.
We need a week or so each year that we call Christmas that lets the spirit of Christmas carols and the smiles and the northern smell of the pine trees carry us far away to a forest in our childhood where we know there’s Santa.
It’s a season we say “Merry Christmas” to people as easily as we say aloha.
Yes, Malia, Santa lives in the twinkling lights on the roof tops, and plastic, lit-up reindeer and candy canes on the front lawns. He lives in the smell of mom’s cookies on the stove and in your own shining Christmas tree in the living room.
He lives whenever you give a present to someone and when you get a present and in the thrill when you open it.
He is in whatever church you go to that makes you glow and feel good.
He lives when you hug somebody.
Christmas is a time of free-parking in your heart, where we smile at strangers in the stores, a time we all loosen up a little and feel lighter all around. A time when we talk to neighbors we never talk to the rest of the year.
With all the roughness and turmoil in life it gives us permission to ignore the bad and embrace the good, and if we’re lucky take that peacefulness with us, maybe all the way to February.
It is a time of letting go, a time we join and laugh with family and friends and for a brief shining moment forgive uncle or aunty for whatevah they did last year. A time to forgive everyone.
Santa Claus is felt in every heart and mind on Christmas Eve, we all see him and the reindeer flying through the night bringing the presents. Whether we are 8 or 80, we can still see Santa.
For one night a year we all get to be a kid again, thank God. Yes, Malia, there is a Santa Claus, you bet there is.
Merry Christmas,
Dennis Gregory is a resident of Kailua-Kona
Viewpoint articles are the opinion of the writer and not necessarily the opinion of West Hawaii Today.