It was way back in 1897 when Virginia Hanlon sent a letter to the editor of the New York Sun. “Dear Editor,” she wrote, “I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. … Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?” In six brief paragraphs, the unnamed editor provided an answer that resonates today.

“Virginia, your little friends are wrong,” he writes. “They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see.”

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