“Twas the Night Before Christmas”, or a “Visit from Saint Nicholas”, is a well-loved ode written on Christmas Eve 1822 by New Yorker Clement Clarke Moore. Penned solely for his family’s entertainment the poem was never intended for publication, but some months later a family friend, Harriet Butler was told of the poem by Clarke Moore’s children she became enchanted by it.
As was the fashion of middle class ladies of the time Harriet Butler kept a day book or journal into which she copied the poem and later submitted it to the editor of the Troy Sentinel who published it on the 23rd of December 1823. From that small beginning The Night Before Christmas was republished in many American magazines and newspapers.
The Night Before Christmas first International Publication
But it took over 20 years for it to be published in a foreign newspaper the Canadian teenagers’ magazine the Snowdrop.
At the same time Clarke Moore publicly acknowledged its authorship in a book of his poems simply entitled Poems. The poem is significant in that it can be said to have formed modern images of Santa Claus and his mode of transport.
We know consider Father Christmas as a jolly, ruddy-cheeked, white-bearded ‘ho, ho, ho-ing’ fellow in fur trimmed coat and trousers. The poem must be the first to describe Donna, Blitzen, Dancer and Prancer, Vixen, Comet and Cupid along with Dasher as the eight reindeers that pulled Santa’s sleigh delivering presents to those children who had been good all year long.
Santa and the Chimney
In the poem Santa Claus indeed tumbles down the chimney with a sack of presents and goodies on his back. Clarke Moore describes how Santa covered in soot and ash clutches a clay pipe between his teeth and how the blue-grey smoke billows from the bowl, curls around Santa’s cap to form a halo around his head.
Establishing the image even further this jolly bringer of cheer is round of belly and rosy of cheek, with a nose the colour of cherries. Smiling broadly the kindly fellow proceeds to fill the stockings hung on the mantelpiece with seasonal treats of sugar plums, oranges, pears and apples.
His work finished and without saying a word, merely conspiratorially tapping the side of his nose he clambers up the chimney, beckons his team and mounts reindeer sledge. With a crack of the reigns he disappears into the wintery night as he disappears he calls from the distance “Happy Christmas to you all and to all a good night.”
Parodies of The Night Before Christmas
“Twas the Night Before Christmas” was first published in the United Kingdom in 1898 by Raphael Tuck in “Father Tuck’s Nursery Tales”. From that time it has become a popular seasonal poem and one that is much parodied today.
There is some circumstantial evidence that Clarke Moore did not author the poem but famed American poet Henry Livingstone Jr was the actual author. Whatever the true attribution, the poem retains its popularity and along with the Coca Cola Company has cemented the image of Santa Claus, Saint Nicholas or Father Christmas in the public mind.
John Howe - John Howe is a qualified nurse, lecturer and journalist, he has written extensively on health, travel and lifestyle in Asia and Europe.
