Macy’s Inspires America To “Believe” This Holiday Season

Get out your pens, crayons or pencils and paper...and help your little ones write a letter to Santa! Or, help a neighbor or a friend write one, or write one for them. Then, take it down to Macy's in a stamped envelope and put in their special "Believe" letterbox at one of their stores. Macy's is giving $1 to the Make-A-Wish Foundation for EVERY stamped letter they receive addressed to "Santa At The North Pole"

We saw the full-page ad in Sunday's paper, but it's also available on the internet:

"Macy’s Inspires America To “Believe” This Holiday Season"

"NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--On the heels of its 150th birthday, Macy’s today unveiled its plans for a nostalgic Christmas campaign called Believe, based on the New York Sun’s famous “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus” editorial from 1897. Complete with in-store “Believe Stations” and a devoted “celebrity designer” TV ad, Believe captures the heart of the holiday with a season-long effort that elevates the message of goodwill and generosity through a campaign to benefit the Make-A-Wish Foundation®.

Known worldwide for its holiday traditions from the Thanksgiving Day Parade to the first in-store Santa, the magic of Macy’s will unfold this year with Believe Stations in every store that feature a Believe Meter, letter-writing station and an official R.H. Macy Santa Mail letterbox. Beginning on November 9, children across the country are invited to drop off their letters – stamped and addressed to Santa At The North Pole – at any Macy’s store in the Santa Mail letterbox. For each letter received, Macy’s will donate $1 to the Make-A-Wish Foundation up to $1 million to grant the wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions.

The Believe campaign was rooted in a letter to the editor written by eight-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon in 1897 asking if there is a Santa Claus. Newsman Francis P. Church responded with a poignantly worded essay on the importance of believing, including the famous line “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist…” "

Here's the original letter from Virginia O'Hanlon to the Sun, way back in 1897, when two of my great-grandparents were each just 2 years old!

Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus

By Francis P. Church, first published in The New York Sun in 1897. [See The People’s Almanac, pp. 1358–9.]

"We take pleasure in answering thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Sun:

Dear Editor—

I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, “If you see it in The Sun, it’s so.” Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?
Virginia O’Hanlon


Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, 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, Virginia, 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 your 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 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.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies. You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you 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 there are unseen and unseeable in the world."