Yes, Virginia, and Robin, there IS a Santa Claus

Thomas Nast 1892.

Chicago Fox news anchor Robin Robinson played the Grinch this week by advising parents to tell children the “truth” about Santa Claus.  (At about 3:30 on the video).

“Stop trying to convince your kids that Santa is Santa,” Robinson said on the air.  “That’s why they have these high expectations. They know you can’t afford it, so what do they do? Just ask some man in a red suit. There is no Santa. (Tell them) as soon as they can talk — There… Is … No … San… Ta …”

Outraged parents threatened to roast her like a chestnut if she didn’t rein it in.

One viewer said:  “For somebody who has been on a major news channel for so long, (she) should know what to say and what not to say.” Another said: “My jaw dropped when I heard her say that there was no Santa.”

Robinson abjectly apologized the following night. “For any damage I did, I wish I could un-ring the bell.” And she took cameras out on the street to ask people  just how bad they thought it was to tell kids the “truth” about Santa.  Pretty bad, apparently. She didn’t get much sympathy. “You’re in trouble,” one said. “People will have to tell their children that you lied to them.”

The trouble could have been avoided if she had remembered a little media history from J-school.

Confronted with a similar dilemma in 1897,   New  York Sun editor Francis P. Church wrote a response to a letter from eight-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon, in which he famously declared:   “Yes, Virginia, There Is A Santa Claus.”

How dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. 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…

In the spirit of the season, and as a Christmas bonus, Robinson was forgiven and got to keep her job — but only on the condition, said co-anchor Bob Sirott, that she complete the following  assignments:

• Watch the Twilight Zone Christmas episode with Art Carney, the Tom Hanks film Polar Express,  and  Miracle on 34th Street with Edmund Gwenn.
• Go interview the tooth fairy.

FOOTNOTE:  The Cincinnati Enquirer, in an interesting twist on the old “Yes, Virginia” theme, assured Santa that there were still a few who still believed. Read: “Yes, Santa Claus, there is a Virginia.” 

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