The news & observer., 1905-12-24

seen his picture ever so many times.
Hasn't he brought you presents ever
since you can remember! Haven't
you read about him in The Night
Before Christmans?" wouldn't you
know him and his sleigh and his rein
deer anywhere? 1t seems to me that
such Santa Claus as that is pretty
much like real.
l tell you there is a Santa Claus
for you just as long as you think so.
Hell drive a reindeer team and come
down the chimney just as long as you
think he does. If l were in your
place / shouldn't be in hurry to give
him up, but | should go on believ-
ing in him as long as ] found it con-
venient.
l feel bound to say that in the
course Of time you will get to feel
about just as your father does. You
will lose track of him and conclude
that there is no such person, but
that will only be because you will
have grown out of the world you live
in just now into a different one in
which Santa Claus is not real per-
son, but only a memory. Even then
you will remember that when you
were a little fellow there, was a real
Santa Claus and you believed in him.
You ask your father if there wasn't
Santa Claus in the world he lived
in when he was seven years old. /
guess there was.
Anyway, don't worry about him.
When you get big and find your belief
in the old man is getting shaky, and
that he is getting shadoWy in your
minds eye, just kiss your hand to
him and say: "Good-by, old chap!
You were bully while you lasted.
There are lots of littler kids than I
am now. Go and be kind to them!"
The Troubled Parents at Christmas.
There is little doubt that a good
many parents are troubled each
Christmas over the Santa Claus story.
The present dimensions which they
give to modern apartment-house
chimneys; the parlors in flats where
here are no fireplaces and only steam
radiators-these touches of our mod
srn living make Santa Claus explana-
ions extremely difficult.
At the same time, the parent feels
hat he must go on with the old le-
gend-or he must tell" and tell
he doesn't like TO. He knows, as eY-
cry man does, that even the most mat
which reality and fancy blend with
facility unknown to maturer years.
Nothing is nearer the heart of TWo-to-
five than the belief in anything Is
wonderful as the old boy of the fur
lined red coat and the reindeer.
AS in the case of all first-rate fiction
the red book of the Christmas fable is
a general truth To all of us the Valu-
able things of life-the sunlight tha
& s,1l
tingS to good handed down by aeons
of ancestors-have a couMe that we
cannot know. And the happiness they
bring is out of all human desert. It
is a sad day in the life of any one
when such a one ceases to believe in
the great giver of gifts-hoWever one
may have pictured him.
One responsibility, and only one.
resss with the truth-loving parent
When the time comes that the growing
child takes thought OF the size of the
chimney, and lies awake as long as his
heavy eyelids let him for a peep at
whoever fills the stockings. then it is
for him to lead the expanding mind
out of the realm of nursery beliefs
and into that of maturer faith. 1t is
not an easy task, and one reason is
that, in the deadening hurry of the
world, very few Of us keep our
own faith warm. Even to buy tokens
of affection for those nearest us we
grudge the fatigue of shopping
perhaps also the money spent. If the
child is given nothing to replace mis-
belief in Santa Claus but the spirit
Of some elders it is better. perhaps. to
deny it to him at the outset. The
trouble then. however. is not that The
legend is false, but that the parents
are falser.