Christmas Eve 1956
1956 – the year I saw Santa Claus.
In 1956, we were living in a rented 3 br /1 bath home on 19th Avenue in San Francisco. The living room and a bedroom were in the the front of the house facing the street – that was the bedroom I shared with my older brother.
The night before Christmas – I was as excited as a four-year-old could possibly be! Santa was coming and bringing me presents! I was giddy with anticipation.
Totally wound up, my parents had to resort to the threat of Santa’s Not Coming If You Don’t Go To Sleep! Santa HAD to come – I finally fell asleep.
At some point, I was awakened by a noise in the living room. I got out of bed and crept to the living room AND THERE HE WAS! Santa was standing in our living room doling out presents!
I was so excited I couldn’t move. I was totally in awe.
Santa looked up at me and smiled – his eyes twinkling – and he put a finger to his lips to tell me to be quiet, and with his other hand he motioned me to go back to bed. Since Santa was the single most important person in the world, I did exactly what he told be to do.
The following morning I was so excited I told everyone what I had seen! They weren’t nearly as excited as I was, but I knew what I had seen.
Sixty-nine years after that sighting, it is as fresh in my mind as the night it happened.
Santa is real. I have seen him!
‘Yes, TimmyDick, there is a Santa Claus’
Dear Editor,
I am 4 years old. Some of my little friends say that there is no Santa Claus. Papa says “If you see it in the Examiner, it is so.” Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?
TimmyDick, San Francisco
TimmyDick, 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, TimmyDick, 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, TimmyDick, 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.
Alas! How dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no TimmyDicks. 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 eternal 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 all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they 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 that 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 that not the strongest man, or the united strength of all the strongest men 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.
Is it all real? Ah, TimmyDick, in all this world there is nothing else as real and abiding. No Santa Claus? Thank God he lives and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, maybe 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the hearts of children.
