Newseum, a news-based interactive museum in Washington D.C., has posted on its website what is perhaps the most famous Santa Claus-based editorial in history. Eight-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon wrote a letter to the editor of New York’s Sun, and the quick response was printed as an unsigned editorial
Sept. 21, 1897. The editorial, the work of veteran newsman Francis Pharcellus Church, has since become history’s most reprinted newspaper editorial, appearing in part or whole in dozens of languages in books, movies, and other editorials, and on posters and stamps. We include it this week to help ignite your spirit of Santa.

• • •