Sock Santa

Yes, West Virginia Sock Monkey, there is a Sock 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 Sock Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no West Virginia Sock Monkeys. 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 Sock 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 Sock Claus, but even if you did not see Sock Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Sock Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Sock 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, West Virginia Sock Monkey, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

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

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!!
Artie