Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus 2023

[A version of this column appeared in 2019.]

When eight-years old Virginia O’Hanlon in 1897 wrote to the editor of the New York Sun asking if there was a Santa Claus because her friends told her there was not one, the editor’s response to her question became the most often quoted editorial in history. He told her, “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 is highest beauty and joy.”

The editor’s response to the young girl is as relevant today as it was more than a hundred years ago. Our nation, state and community are filled with the kind of love and generosity that our religious and secular holidays and traditions celebrate. There is much to be done to make love and generosity more abundant and more universal, but there is reason to believe that we are moving in the right direction. Whether we celebrate Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Navratri, Vijayadashami, Diwali, Christmas, Kwanzaa, or the many other religious holidays that exist, we can engage in the kind of love and generosity that Santa Claus has come to symbolize to some people.

Yes, Virginia, speaking to the people of one of the states of the Union and not to the inquiring young girl who wrote to the editor, there is an opportunity for us to adopt policies and laws that will deliver the “love and generosity” that can “give to your life the highest beauty and joy.” Separation of church and state is an important part of the government we enjoy in this country, and efforts on the part of some to incorporate their own religious beliefs into a government that all must follow must be defeated. We must work to ensure that we have a government that has the highest sense of moral obligations and ethics to include caring for the rights and responsibility and a quality life for all.

Virginia is a wealthy state financially and in history, traditions, and culture. We have a basis on which we can lead the nation as the best place to work, play and raise a family. We must resist efforts to lead us in a direction that would have the government define our own healthcare decisions, who we can love and marry, what we are to learn about our own history, and those who would be included in or excluded from society. We must move from an assertion that one person’s claim to a right does not deprive others from life itself.

Yes, Virginia, just as love and generosity can exist in our communities for some, it can be available for all throughout the year as well as at holiday time! Whatever holiday you celebrate, if any, have a glorious and happy time of the year.