Welcome to From the Front porch, a conversational podcast about books, small business, and life in the South.

I'm Annie Jones, owner of the Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in beautiful downtown

Thomasville, Georgia. And this week, it's time for our annual reading of, yes, Virginia,

there is a Santa Claus. It's the busiest and brightest time of year at the Bookshelf,

and I'm guessing it's the case for you as well. So I wanted to take a minute and slow down.

For the past couple of years, I have recorded my reading of, yes, Virginia, and without realizing it,

I think it's become a From the Front porch tradition. It just wouldn't be, to me, the Christmas season

without it. So I hope you will grant to me the opportunity to veer from our traditional format

and to do a shorter episode this week as we prepare for the big day and the days to follow and

share, yes, Virginia with you. If you are new around here or this is an unfamiliar story to you,

Francis P. Church's editorial, yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, was an immediate sensation

upon its publication. It became one of the most famous editorials ever written. It first appeared

in the New York Sun, a now defunct paper back in 1897, and it was reprinted annually there for,

I think, almost a decade. And then 36 years after the letter was printed, Virginia,

O'Hanlon granted an interview, and she recalled what prompted her letter. Like so many children

before her, she believed in Santa Claus, but she encountered kids at school, her neighbors,

fellow children, who maybe were not as want to believe as her. And so she went to her dad

with her doubts, with her concerns, and her dad really didn't have an answer. He was a little

bit evasive. And this is a quote from Virginia, Hanlon, she said, it was a habit in our family

that whenever any doubts came up as to how to pronounce a word or some question of historical

fact was in doubt, we wrote to the question and answer column in the Sun. Father would always say,

if you see it in the Sun, it's so. And that settled the matter, which I just think is such a lovely

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