Yes, Virginia...

Jim raises the "secret about Santa" question; presents USPS Operation Santa; reads some actual letters to Santa, and one letter from Santa that Mark Twain wrote to his daughter Susie; and concludes with some thoughts from the famous "Yes, Virginia" editorial from 1897.

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Transcript

JIM: Welcome to Making Our Way. I’m Jim and I’m recording this on Sunday, December 22nd, 2024. It’s the fourth Sunday of Advent, and our house is full of guests. We have Dee’s mom, Ruby Barbour, and her dog Benji, which is a terrier mix of some variety. Our listeners may remember Ruby from episode 2, over a year ago called, “North, Past Alaska.” We also have Michelle McRae, who is Deanna’s sister, and her two daughters - our nieces - Silvana and Mattea. Again, our listeners may remember Mattea from episodes 9 and 10 called “Rocks and Ages.” Mattea’s a geologist. Meanwhile, Jan and Rob have welcomed into their home for the holidays Rob’s sister Sandy and her husband Russ. And again, listeners will remember Sandy and Russ from episodes 19, 20, and 21, where they reminisced with Jan and Rob about the safari the four of them took to Tanzania.

So, with so many competent candidates for a podcast, why am I alone at the mic today? Well, while the rest are at church this Sunday before Christmas, you may know that Dee and I live with two dogs, our golden retriever Brigus, who is eight, and our teacup Yorkie Pip, who is one and a half. Five days ago, little Pip was diagnosed with encephalitis, an inflammation in the brain that, in his case, is an autoimmune disorder. About a third of the dogs do not survive much more than a week after such a diagnosis. Others with treatment can live longer, perhaps even a year or more. Our boy’s brain makes it difficult for him to walk and take care of himself, so I wanted to stay home and be with him this morning. He’s on my lap. He’s shaking a bit, and he shouldn’t be alone. We’ll give you updates on Pip through upcoming episodes.

Now, I have a question for you. How old were you when you learned the big secret, when you figured out the secret about Santa? Now, I don’t remember how I learned it, but I do remember long ago my cousin Craig started to tell me a story one Christmas, but then he did a quick spoiler alert check and asked, “You do know the truth about Santa, right?” Well, yes, I did, but that’s the sort of question that just by asking it sort of gives it away. So let’s talk about Santa, and if you’re one of our younger listeners and you’re asking yourself, “What’s this secret about Santa thing?” go ask your mother.

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From the outset, no matter what else you might glean from this episode, let me be clear on this point. I’m on the “Yes, Virginia” side of this question. My wife Deanna and I saw Santa Claus at International Mall right here in Tampa. We took our dog Brigus there to get his picture taken with Santa a couple years ago. Little did we know that two forces of nature were about to collide. Force number one: Brigus loves to sit on people’s feet. It’s his most sincere gesture of acceptance. He licks your hand, then he turns his back to you and plants his 75 pounds squarely on your feet. Welcome to the pack. Force number two: Santa Claus, we learned, has gout, and Brigus planted himself right on Santa’s big toe, and I’m not sure I could translate for our young listeners whatever Santa yelled in his North Pole dialect, but we got the message. Then again last year, Santa was back at the mall, and Deanna and I were on the upper level looking down at him and his helpers and the photographer and the very long line of expectant kids. As one kid jumped off his lap, Santa happened to look up at us and see us, and he spread his arms out as if pleading and mouthed the words, “Help me!” So yes, Virginia, Santa is real. We’ve seen him.

Did you know the United States Postal Service runs a program called Operation Santa? “Santa has lots of letters to read,” they say,” so here’s how you can make his job easier. Write legibly, include your full name and address in the letter, list the gifts you want in order of preference, and be specific about the gifts you’re asking for. Don’t ask for gifts that might be too expensive.”

Then they give you help on how to structure your letter, and there are seven points.

• Number one, start with a greeting. They suggest, “Dear Santa.”

• Number two, introduce yourself. Their example is, "My name is Susie."

• Number three, explain why Santa should visit you, such as, "I’ve been good this year."

• Number four, explain what you want.

• Number five, give some details such as clothing sizes, or the color of toys, or the caliber of firearm. (No, I made that last one up.)

• Number six, provide a closing. They suggest, “Thank you, Santa.”

• And number seven, include your signature, such as, “Love Susie.”

Now, the Operation Santa program says that there’s a deadline for getting your letters to Santa, and this year that deadline. But I say that’s just another example of government regulatory overreach. If the big guy can make it to every house in the world in just one night, then I’m sure he can answer letters postmarked after December 9th. I happen to have a few letters, actual letters, that children have written to Santa Claus, and I’d like to share a couple of them with you, because they tell us about the future of our country.

Here’s one. “Dear Santa,” it begins, and she puts the name Santa in quotes, got it? “Dear Santa, even though I know the truth, I want you to know how much I enjoyed believing in you for the past 10 and a half years. Love, Ava.” Isn’t that nice?

Here’s another one. “Dear Santa, how are you? I’m good. Here is what I want for Christmas.” Now, that part was all written out in blue crayon, blue crayon. And then he writes out by hand an entire URL from the amazon.com website, and the link is written in red crayon, and the URL runs about 200 characters, and they’re all written in red crayon. By the way, he draws a very good ampersand. “I tried the URL and didn’t work for me. I hope Santa has better luck.”

This one’s interesting. Starts off. “Jackson, Christmas list, joggers.” It goes right down the page one item after another. “Joggers, Nike stuff, BB gun, slingshot, cool knives, candy, not chocolate, iPhone, bearded dragon, pig, Great Dane, chocolate Labrador.” And then he adds, “New president.” Not sure who prompted him on that one. Well, at least he listens to his parents. That’s a good thing, right?

Here’s another. “Dear Santa, you better,” and the word better is underlined there, “you better bring my pony this year or there will be consequences.” I think that’s probably Jackson’s younger brother.

Here’s an inquisitive mind. “Dear Santa, I know that I never wrote you a letter because I don’t celebrate Christmas, but I am writing you this one to thank you for giving everyone presents.” That’s very nice. Then he goes on. “I want to ask you one thing. Is it true that you go around the whole world in one night? If you do, can you tell me how you do it? Santa, thank you for spreading happiness around the earth. Say hi to Mrs. Claus for me.” The signature is cut off on what I have here, but I’m guessing that’s a very young Neil deGrasse Tyson. “Can you tell me how you did it?”

Now, here’s a practical guy. He says, “Dear Santa, if you’re bringing presents that use batteries, bring batteries.” I like that.

Here’s an old one. A teacher gave her students the assignment of writing letters to Santa. There’s a form she gave all her students. At the top, it said, “Dear Santa,” and then a number of underlines for the children to fill in their letters to Santa. And one very literal-minded student wrote, “A, B, C, D, E, F,” right through the alphabet, three times through the alphabet.

Here’s one where a child has one item on her list and it says, “cat, gato, katze, kata.” And the list goes right down the page saying the word cat in several different languages. Then at the bottom, she says, “What language do you want me to say it in? Here are 16.” I’m guessing this is an older child who’s been disappointed several years running now. “So what language do you want me to say it in?” Okay.

And now my favorite is from a boy named Ryan who has a sister named Amber. And there’s a mythical character here named Big Time Rush. Here’s Ryan’s letter. “Dear Santa, my mom said to send you our Christmas list. I wanted a remote controlled car and helicopter, but I don’t want that anymore. Kids at school are still picking on Amber and it’s not fair because she doesn’t do anything to them and it makes me mad. I prayed that they will stop, but God is busy and needs your help. Is it against the rules to give gifts early? Can you ask Big Time Rush to come to Amber’s birthday party? It would make her so happy. If you can’t get them to come, just give her everything she asks for. Thanks, Santa. Love, Ryan. P.S. My mom throws the best birthday parties. You can come if you want.”

So those are actual letters to Santa, but I have a treat this year, something that I found. And it’s not a letter to Santa, it’s a letter from Santa. And it’s written to someone named Susie. In this case, it’s Olivia Susan Clemens, called Susie by her mother, Olivia Langdon Clemens, and by her father, Samuel Langhorne Clemens, who, as we know, wrote under the name Mark Twain. Twain wrote this letter to his daughter Susie to be read to her on Christmas Day, 1875. Susie was three years old at the time.

Now, this letter mentions someone named George. It’s George Griffin. And George Griffin, a former slave, served as Mark Twain’s butler for 17 years, and it’s thought that Twain modeled his character Jim in Huckleberry Finn on George Griffin. Perhaps by now you’ve heard there’s a new novel this year called “James” written by Percival Everett, and it tells the story of Jim, the runaway slave in Twain’s original. It tells that story from Jim’s point of view. Everett himself is descended from slaves, and I hear that Steven Spielberg is developing the novel into a movie.

The baby mentioned in this letter is Clara Langdon Clemens, who was one and a half at the time, and who was the only of Mark Twain’s four children to survive him. Here then is a letter from Santa Claus.

“My dear Susie Clemens:

“I have received and read all the letters which you and your sister have written me by the hand of your mother and your nurses. I have also read those which you little people have written me with your own hands, for although you did not use any characters that are in grown people’s alphabet, you use the characters that all children in all lands on earth and in the twinkling stars use. And as all my subjects in the moon are children and use no characters but that, you will easily understand that I can read your and your baby sister’s jagged and fantastic marks without trouble at all. But I had trouble with those letters which you dictated through your mother and the nurses, for I am a foreigner and cannot read English writing well.

“You will find that I’ve made no mistakes about the things which you and the baby ordered in your letters. I went down your chimney at midnight when you were asleep, and delivered them all myself, and kissed both of you, too, because you are good children, well trained, nice mannered, and about the most obedient little people I ever saw. But in the letter which you dictated, there are some words that I could not make out for certain, and one or two small orders which I could not fill because we ran out of stock. Our last lot of kitchen furniture for dolls has just gone to a poor little child up in the North Star, away up in the cold country about the Big Dipper. Your mama can show you that star and you will say, “Little Snowflake,” for that is the child’s name, “I’m glad you got that furniture, for you need it more than I.” That is, you must write that with your own hand and Snowflake will write you an answer. If you only speak it, she wouldn’t hear you. Make your letter light and thin, for the distance is great and the postage heavy.

“There was a word or two in your mama’s letter which I couldn’t be certain of. I took it to be a trunk full of dolls’ clothes. Is that it? I will call at your kitchen door at just about nine o’clock this morning to inquire, but I must not see anybody and I must not speak to anybody but you. When the kitchen doorbell rings, George must be blindfolded and sent to open the door. Then he must go back to the dining room or the china closet and take the cook with him. You must tell George that he must walk on tiptoe and not speak, otherwise he will die someday. Then you must go up to the nursery and stand on a chair or the nurse’s bed and put your ear to the speaking tube that leads down to the kitchen. And when I whistle through it, you must speak in the tube and say, “Welcome, Santa Claus.” Then I will ask whether it was a trunk you ordered or not. If you say it was, I shall ask you what color you want the trunk to be and your mama will help you to name a nice color. And then you must tell me about every single thing in detail you may want the trunk to contain. Then I will say, “Goodbye and a Merry Christmas to my little Susie Clemens.” You must say, “Goodbye, good old Santa. I thank you very much. And please tell Snowflake I will look at her star tonight and she must look down here. I will be right in the West Bay window and every fine night I will look at her star and say, ‘I know somebody up there and like her too.’” Then you must go down into the library and make George close all the doors that open into the main hall and everybody must keep still for a little while. I will go to the moon and get those things and in a few minutes I will come down the chimney that belongs to the fireplace that is in the hall - if it is a trunk you want, because I couldn’t get such a thing as a trunk down the nursery chimney, you know.

“People may talk if they want until they hear my footsteps in the hall. Then you tell them to keep quiet a little while till I go back up the chimney. Maybe you will not hear my footsteps at all. So you may go now and then and peep through the dining room doors, and by and by you will see that thing which you want right under the piano in the drawing room, for I shall put it there.

“If I should leave any snow in the hall you must tell George to sweep it into the fireplace, for I haven’t time to do such things. George must not use a broom, but a rag, else he will die someday. You must watch George and not let him run into danger. If my boot should leave a stain on the marble, George must not holystone it away. Leave it there always in memory of my visit, and whenever you look at it or show it to anybody you must let it remind you to be a good little girl. Whenever you are naughty and someone points to that mark which your good old Santa Claus’s boot made on the marble, what will you say little sweetheart?

“Goodbye for a few minutes till I come down to the world and ring the kitchen doorbell.

“Your loving Santa Claus, whom people sometimes call the man in the moon.”

Well now there’s a little glimpse of what it must have been like to have Mark Twain as your father.

To close then, in 1897 Francis Pharcellus Church wrote an editorial in the New Yorker newspaper called The Sun which contained these lines: “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 or even the united strength of all the strongest man that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernatural beauty and glory beyond.” This is the same editorial that contains this famous passage, “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.”

It was E.B. White who said “To perceive Christmas through its wrappings becomes more difficult with every year.” We could paraphrase that. “To perceive each other through our wrappings becomes more difficult with every year.” We hide ourselves under various wrappings, even from our most intimate friends. Our vulnerabilities, our self-doubts, our insecurities - these we hide from each other and even from ourselves. Perhaps the eye of faith, the eye of a child like Virginia or Susie, can split that veil to reveal the value that lies in each of us. This just might be a lesson of the incarnation.

On behalf of the whole Making Our Way crew, and on behalf of Pip who was able to sleep through all my noise, we wish you well this season.

Until next time.

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