Christmas Is Imagination Turned True

Christmas is imagination tumed true!

OPPOSITE PAGE"Carmelita's wonderful world," oil on canvas by ALEXANDER ROSS, was painted especially for this December 1975 edition of ARIZONA HIGHWAYS Magazine. Alexander Ross started his career in art in 1934. He is best known for his Good Housekeeping Magazine covers from 1941-1954. Ross, always an "artist's artist," combined magazine and book illustrating with teaching and served as director of the creative painting, Catholic University Workshop seminar in 1954. He is a member of the Society of Illustrators, Westport Artists Group and American Water Color Society. He is also active as a lecturer at art schools and colleges. Alexander Ross is represented in Arizona by the Thompson Galleries.For those who hold that "seeing is believing" life is a drama of the visible and the invisible. However it is a gross error to hold that one must see to believe. It's hard to believe that Carmelita knows of such things, of such people, and such places as we have chosen to extol on these pages. Carmelita was born blind - yet - Carmelita knows that a rose is not simply a rose. Carmelita finds great happiness strolling through the gardens of her father's house, touching, smelling and reacting to the separate, and at times simultaneous, sen-sations transmitted through her different senses. Flower petals, tree bark, the smooth roundness of an apple, the sounds of birdsong... each is impressed in Carmelita's mind. This year she agreed to submit an experimental program conducted by a group of Neurologists and Ophthalmologists involving electro-impulses which resulted in her first mental impressions of color. Carmelita knows about Christmas. She eagerly awaits the happy children singing her favorite carols in what she describes as "crystal and silver voices." Carmelita knows of Jesus, who she says "is the vision who never turns his face from me." Carmelita knows that God is in every flower, every raindrop, and every bird that sings. Carmelita knows Santa Claus. She becomes very upset about the doubts of her friends, as did the original real-life Virginia Hanlon, almost 80 years ago. Every year, at the beginning of the Christmas season Carmelita invites her friends to her own special "keep the faith in Santa Claus" party, to hear her favorite Christmas album recording of "Yes, Virginia." Following is the letter which, late in 1897, came to the New York Sun: Dear Editor: I am eight 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?

Here is the famous editorial in reply: 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 they 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 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 that 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, or even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, 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 as real and abiding. No Santa Claus? Thank God he lives and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, nay ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the hearts of children. For those who believe, Christmas is almost heaven!