It’s Christmas Eve and many families around the world are celebrating with extravagant dinners, parties, family get- togethers and etc, but many times I believe people forget what it is all about, not just Christmas time but what the real values of life are about. Today’s world lives in an information age where technology has made the exchange of information faster then ever. Within seconds we find out about new advances in science, natural disasters, or even whether or not Elizabeth and Johnny are still dating through the internet and wireless devices. I believe that in all this exchange some people at times forget that there are values in life that can’t be seen such as love, compassion, hope, faith, and friendship. People fall in and out ‘love’, have a new best-friend-forever, and have had sex 5 times with 3 different people all in a week. With all this how can anything ever be special. How can a first kiss be special? How can love at first site be possible? Is there even a such thing as true friendship? I beleive that sometimes we should all take time to ourselves and think about all that. I know that buying the newest most expensive in-style clothing helps boost our self-image and I do the same thing, but I’ve seen that so many people lose themselves in this world of materialism and do forget those real values that make them what they are. Anyway this issue can be taken very deeply and I’m sure other people have different opinions from me. For now I just want to share the below letter with all the viewers. It was written by a young 8 year old girl named Virginia to the Editor of The New York Sun in 1897. The editor sums up so many deep thoughts into a simple letter to a girl. I believe it is a masterpiece.

- I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas.

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Dear Editor—

I am 8 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

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 external 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 you 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 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, 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 lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.
-Francis P. Church