Acredite...Ele existe..!

(trechos do BBC news)

EXISTE Papai Noel?.... vamos pegar uma referencia do final do século 19 e certa historia (famosa) nos anais da Imprensa...Internacional

1897, uma menina linda, irlandesa, chamada Virginia O'Hanlon morava em Nova York na casa número 115 da rua 95. Naquele ano, Virginia sentou na escrivaninha e escreveu uma carta: "Tenho oito anos e alguns amigos dizem que Papai Noel não existe. Papa diz que tudo que é verdade sai publicado no jornal The Sun. Então, diga-me, por favor, a verdade. Papai Noel existe?"
A resposta "Sim, Virginia, Papai Noel existe", publicada em 21 de setembro de 1897, É um dos mais famosos senão o mais famoso editorial na imprensa americana. Foi escrito por Francis Church (conhecido pela família como Francis Ph) e dizia num parágrafo: "Ele existe tão certamente como existem o amor, a generosidade e a devoção que dão à sua vida o mais alto sentido de beleza e alegria. Aliás, que triste seria o mundo sem Papai Noel. Tão triste como se não existissem meninas como vocé Virgínia." Este Editorial foi reproduzido no país inteiro e publicado ano após ano no Jornal The Sun até sua a data da sua Última edição, em 1949.
Só depois da morte de Francis Church, em 1906, o jornal revelou que ele tinha sido o autor do editorial. E a menina? Virginia O'Hanlon estudou artes, fez mestrado na Columbia, acabou como diretora de escola. A casa onde ela morou e de onde escreveu a carta ainda esté de pé embora anda meio decadente. Virginia morreu aos 81 anos, no dia 13 de maio; e vejam que coincidéncia!: no mesmo dia da aparição da Virgem para as trés crianças em Fátima. (portugal) Na Gruta da Iria.
Até Einstein, dizia que: só há duas maneiras de viver a vida: ou acreditando que nada é milagre, ou que tudo é um milagre. Acho que nessa época ele ainda não tinha inventado a Teoria da Relatividade, que por sinal está fazendo os cem anos neste ano de 2005....

A continuação deste texto, a Íntegra da Versão Original....

...nas fotos: o Autor (do famoso Editorial) e Virginia

"Frank's Answer:
"Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus"
The managing editor of The Sun, spoke of Francis Ph. Church's writing as "infused with well-bred humor, sometimes gentle, sometimes sly, occasionally even mordant, but with a bite that never deposited venom. It was employed on a wide range of subjects." He said that sometimes "this unmistakable individuality occupying a column or so with a discussion of other newspapers ... displayed, an insight into journalistic character."
It was Mitchell who had assigned Church to reply to a request from a young reader - Laura Virginia O'Hanlon. In Mitchell's 1924 words: "One day in 1897 I handed to him (Frank) a letter that had come in the mail from a child of eight, saying: 'Please tell me the truth: is there a Santa Claus?' Her little friends had told her no. Church bristled and pooh-poohed at the subject when I suggested that he write a reply to Virginia O'Hanlon; but he took the letter and turned with an air of resignation to his desk. In a short time he had produced the article which has probably been reprinted during the past quarter of a century, as the classic expression of Christmas sentiment, more millions of times than any other newspaper article ever written by any newspaper-writer in any language."

READ BELOW THE COMPLETE ORIGINAL READ:
From the editorial page of the New York Sun, 1897.

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:

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 sceptical age. They do not believe except what 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 external 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.

You tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus? Thank God he lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood."