A Visit from St. Nicholas

jones-family-christmas-lights-fi
Thank you to the Jones family for all their efforts to make the community stronger and for lighting up the holidays! And thank you to their neighbors for having patience with the many people coming to see the Christmas lights. Many families we spoke with were able to share the show with extended families and friends in Greenwich for the holidays ... they were inspired and moved. The light show has ended  its run, but our gratitude remains. Photo by John Ferris Robben.
Thank you to the Jones family for all their efforts to make the community stronger and for lighting up the holidays! And thank you to their neighbors for having patience with the many people coming to see the Christmas lights. Many families we spoke with were able to share the show with extended families and friends in Greenwich for the holidays … they were inspired and moved. The light show has ended its run, but our gratitude remains. Photo by John Ferris Robben.

For many in Greenwich and around the world, treasured holiday traditions include a bedtime story that begins, “’Twas the night before Christmas,” on Christmas Eve.

While there is some slight disagreement over the authorship of this now famous poem, most believe it was penned by Clement Clarke Moore (1779-1863).

According to the Library of Congress American Memory project, Moore wrote the tale on Christmas Eve, 1822, while traveling to his Chelsea-district home from Greenwich Village, where he picked up the last of many turkeys that his family traditionally donated to the poor each holiday season.

Moore created A Visit from St. Nicholas (now known as ’Twas the Night Before Christmas) to read to his own six children that evening. His vision was likely influenced in some part by the description of St. Nicholas in Washington Irving’s A History of New York (1809). In this fanciful account, St. Nicholas is credited with inspiring, through a vivid dream, the location of the city that is now Manhattan.

Moore would have been influenced as well by his father, Benjamin Moore, who was president of Columbia University and who, in his role as Episcopal bishop of New York, took part in the inauguration of George Washington as the nation’s first president.

A graduate of Columbia, Clement Moore was a scholar of Hebrew and a professor of Oriental and Greek literature at the General Theological Seminary in Manhattan. This light-hearted poem was never meant for the public, which may be why it was published anonymously, likely without Moore knowing it was submitted.

The poem was first published in a newspaper on December 23, 1823. The newspaper was the Sentinel—the Troy (New York) Sentinel, to be precise.

Tonight, in our home, our holiday tradition will most certainly include a bedtime story. We will make our way back from the Christmas Eve service and everyone will open one present.

The contents of these presents is never a surprise—always new Christmas pajamas, washed and ready to wear this very night.

Then there will be hot cocoa while we sit and listen. One wife, two children, two dogs, and a cat. Quiet. Then Peter will begin to read this brief but magical tale.

—Elizabeth Barhydt

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring,
not even a mouse;

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,

In hopes that St. Nicholas
soon would be there;

The children were nestled
all snug in their beds;

While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;

And mamma in her ’kerchief, and I in my cap,

Had just settled our brains
for a long winter’s nap,

When out on the lawn
there arose such a clatter,

I sprang from the bed
to see what was the matter.

Away to the window
I flew like a flash,

Tore open the shutters
and threw up the sash.

The moon on the breast
of the new-fallen snow,

Gave a lustre of midday
to objects below,

When what to my wondering
eyes should appear,

But a miniature sleigh and
eight tiny reindeer,

With a little old driver
so lively and quick,

I knew in a moment he
must be St. Nick.

More rapid than eagles
his coursers they came,

And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name!

ìNow, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!

On, Comet! On, Cupid! on,
Donder and Blitzen!

To the top of the porch!
to the top of the wall!

Now dash away! dash away!
dash away all!”

As dry leaves that before
the wild hurricane fly,

When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;

So up to the housetop the
coursers they flew,

With the sleigh full of Toys,
and St. Nicholas too—

And then, in a twinkling,
I heard on the roof

The prancing and pawing
of each little hoof.

As I drew in my head,
and was turning around,

Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.

He was dressed all in fur,
from his head to his foot,

And his clothes were all
tarnished with ashes and soot.

A bundle of toys he had
flung on his back,

And he looked like a peddler,
just opening his pack.

His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!

His cheeks were like roses,
his nose like a cherry!

His droll little mouth
was drawn up like a bow,

And the beard of his chin
was as white as the snow;

The stump of a pipe he held
tight in his teeth,

And the smoke, it encircled
his head like a wreath;

He had a broad face and
a little round belly

That shook when he laughed,
like a bowlful of jelly.

He was chubby and plump,
a right jolly old elf,

And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;

A wink of his eye and
a twist of his head,

Soon gave me to know
I had nothing to dread;

He spoke not a word,
but went straight to his work,

And filled all the stockings;
then turned with a jerk,

And laying his finger aside of his nose, And giving a nod,
up the chimney he rose;

He sprang to his sleigh,
to his team gave a whistle,

And away they all flew
like the down of a thistle.

But I heard him exclaim,
ere he drove out of sight—

ìHappy Christmas to all,
and to all a good night!î

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