A Christmas Message

Yes, Santa, there is a Virginia

Dear Editor:
                 My friends at the North Pole tell me that little children of Christmas don't exist anymore.  They say in a world of shortages and disillusionment, the magic of Christmas is gone.
                 The traditional Christmas tree is a fire hazard, the bright, colored lights that illuminated the sparkle in a child's eye have given way to the energy crunch, sugar plums cause cavities when you can get the sugar, and yule logs are over $50 for half a cord.
                 The mail to the North Pole is light because the postal system is caught up in bureaucracy and takes 18 days air mail.  Christmas cards are being cranked out of mimeograph machines, and health authorities have just warned that eating snow is unhealthy and is germ-ridden.
                 My very presence in a red suit and a white beard has been decried by child psychologists as a damage to the emotional id of a child and confuses his identity with reality.
                 Mrs. Claus said if I read it in your newspaper (or Jack Anderson's column, whichever comes first) that Virginia still exists, it is true.  Tell me, is there a Virginia?
                 Signed,
                 Santa Claus
                 Age 1,674

Dear Santa:
                Yes, Santa, there is a Virginia.
                She's not the same wide-eyed, barefoot child you used to visit, but she still exists.
                She's a little older now, because during her lifetime she has viewed on television in a week what it used to take a lifetime to see.
                She's a little harder to impress, but you must understand she lives in a world of talking refrigerators, dolls with plumbing and phones that talk back when there is no one there.
                She's a little more skeptical and cautious of promises, because she's living in a time that questions and demands and seeks proof.
                But Virginia still believes because she is a child.  And a child must have dreams to know joy ....... fantasy to know reality ...... and imagination to create her own private world to escape a real one.
                She exists now, and, God willing, will exist forever for you who has never brought war, scandal, disaster, sickness or hatred to our earth.
                As long as you bring only a spirit of love and peace, Virginia must believe.