Santa Claus

IT SNOWED the other morning, and my 3-year-old son, Little Solomon, ran into our bedroom (without knocking, of course) to happily announce that Santa was on his way. I was groggy, but his pronouncement forced me into a pivotal fatherhood moment - one that I'd already faced with his big sister Eve. "Son, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but . . . " My wife, LaVeta, chimed in. "Santa Claus is right in front of you, lying in bed....

In 1897, a little girl in New York City wrote a letter to the editor of the New York Sun, a then-great now-gone newspaper. It was Virginia's good fortune - and ours - that the letter fell into the hands of an editorial writer named Francis P. Church, who answered her gently and wisely. We publish this, partially because it's so wise and partially because editorial pages are short of its gentle wisdom. Mostly, we run it because we like it so much. What follows is as it appeared in the New York Sun of Sept.

Yes, Delaware County, there is a Santa Claus. Two days last week, he was spotted on the streets of Lansdowne during dinnertime. He visited every street. And a few days before that, he was at the Media Borough Hall - before he left for the Darby Fire Company, No. 1 station. On Tuesday, he was supposed to travel up and down the streets of Yeadon, escorted by eight fire trucks from the Yeadon Fire Company. And he was at the malls for more than a month. With such overwhelming evidence of his existence, how could there not be a Santa Claus?

Yes, Virginia, there definitely will be a Bruce Springsteen concert album package for Christmas. Officially announced yesterday by Columbia Records, the five-record set will be called "Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Live - 1975-85. " It covers four tours - in 1975, 1978, 1980-81 and 1984-85 - and will be comprised of 40 songs, including numbers from each of Springsteen's seven albums. A 36-page book with lyrics will be included in the boxed set, which will resemble Columbia's recent Bob Dylan retrospective, "Biograph.

Warren Mercer, 83, who played Santa Claus for several generations of West Chester children and co-founded the annual Old Fiddlers Picnic in Chester County, died Friday at the Friends Hall nursing home in West Chester. Mr. Mercer was a lifetime resident of the West Chester area. He was born in East Bradford Township and worked as a plasterer, first in a business of his own and then, from 1957 until his retirement in 1979, for the West Chester University maintenance department. He and his wife, Phoebe, had lived for the last three years on New Jersey Avenue in West Chester.

The fans pelted Santa Claus with snowballs, because the 1968 Eagles stank like the sewers of Manayunk, because an incompetent coach named Joe Kuharich, who couldn't win at Notre Dame, had been given a 15-year contract by the owner, Jerry Wolman. The fans pelted Santa Claus with snowballs because they were fed up with a lousy football team and glitzy halftime shows featuring a 50-piece brass band, because the Eagles were 2-11 at that point, because the two games they'd won after losing the first 11 would cost them the chance to draft O.J. Simpson.

By Paul F. Bradley I have an aversion to shopping, specifically to Christmas shopping. Some years ago, our sister coerced my brothers and me into an endless yuletide trudge through the Willow Grove Mall. She ignored any and all appeals for lunch or breaks as the packages piled up and the store-by-store invasion slogged to the next door-busting sale. To this day, I still get flashbacks of the "just one more store" refrain whenever I pass the place, even in the summer. Now I try to avoid the malls, stores, and, most of all, the seemingly endless parade of giddy holiday shoppers for another reason: the total lack of courtesy that abounds during this purported season of peace and giving.

'D ear Editor: I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Other friends say there is a Santa Claus and bad Eagles fans hit him with snowballs. Papa says, 'If you see it in SportsWeek , it's so.' Please tell me the truth. Is there a Santa Claus and did Eagles fans hurt Santa?" Virginia O'Hanlon Fifth and Shunk South Philadelphia Virginia, your little friends are peddling half-truths. Eagles fans did pelt Santa, but they aren't bad people. Your pals are brainwashed by urban legend, fueled by the mindless chatter of national sports announcers and sports writers piling on Eagles fans as if they were Satan's green-garbed disciples, assaulting St. Nick without provocation.

Travel back to 19th-century London Saturday and meet Ebenezer Scrooge at the Walnut Street Theatre production of A Christmas Carol . The play, based on the 1843 novel by Charles Dickens, takes audiences to the world of the vitriolic, selfish, and greedy Scrooge - who begins to change his feelings toward Christmas when he receives visits from the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future.   "A Christmas Carol," 11 a.m. Saturday at Walnut Street Theatre, 825 Walnut St. Tickets: $10-$25.

NEW YORK - Santa has kicked the habit in time for Christmas. No, not the sugarplum habit, or his fur-wearing habit, or his penchant for romping recklessly around open flame. No, this is the year the man in red gave up pipe tobacco, at least in a new book version of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas that has received attention from some lofty corners, including the American Library Association. The self-published Pamela McColl of Vancouver, Canada, has a mission for her story, to protect children and their parents from the ravages of smoking.

We raise our kids to be truthful. We teach them about the laws of physics. And then we tell them that nine flying reindeer pull an immortal fat man and his sleigh through the sky so that he can deliver gifts to millions of kids around the world one night a year. Is it bad that we lie to our kids about Santa? Though lying can be an awfully convenient parenting crutch - "Sorry, sweetheart, but the police might arrest you if I let you have more candy, so we better not" - it's generally best to keep it to a minimum, both to develop trust between yourself and your child and to lead by example.

DEAR ABBY: I am a 41-year-old female working on my associate's degree in paralegal studies. Most people I know tell me I'm attractive, and I do get some second looks from men, but there is one thing I think - although I'm not sure - that scares them away. I am disabled. I dress well, am an average weight for my height, independent-minded, although not quite independent physically. I get around on crutches. I live with my parents. I enjoy and participate in physical activities. I don't have a lot of friends, which is fine with me, but I do have a number of special ones.

STAMFORD, Conn. - A department-store Santa Claus who died with his wife and three grandchildren in a Christmas-morning house fire spent a long career trying to prevent danger as safety chief at a liquor company in Kentucky. A day after fire engulfed his daughter's upscale house in Stamford, Lomer Johnson was remembered fondly as a stickler for safety by a former boss at Louisville, Ky.-based liquor maker Brown-Forman Corp., where Johnson retired from his job as safety and security director several years ago. "He spent his career trying to keep others safe," retired Brown-Forman executive Robert Holmes Jr. said yesterday in a phone interview.

DENVER - Santa Claus is piling up more than presents this year. The big man's trackers at NORAD say he also broke records this Christmas Eve. Volunteers at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado were fielding 8,000 calls an hour Saturday afternoon, on pace to break a record. Also, Santa's NORAD Facebook page approached 920,000 "likes" by midafternoon. Last year, Santa had 716,000 "likes. " Volunteers at NORAD Tracks Santa said children started calling at 4 a.m. to find out where Santa was. "The phones are ringing like crazy," Lt. Cmdr.

By Maria Archangelo My mother grew up in a Philadelphia rowhouse where men were irrelevant. The shooting death of her father - a rookie policeman killed in the line of duty in 1933 - left her mother alone to raise three girls. To help them survive, two maiden aunts moved in. Fanny and Ella were tough and stern. In a tintype, Aunt Ella looks like the mean neighbor who turns into the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz . Already old when they moved in, these ladies took care of the girls while my grandmother went out to work.