Twas the Night Before Christmas

“A Visit From Saint Nicholas” or as it is routinely referred to “Twas the Night Before Christmas” was written by Clement Clarke Moore on Christmas Eve 1822. A newly minted professor of Greek and Hebrew literature at General Theological Seminary, he was hosting a holiday gathering at his home in and at some point in the evening he began reading this lighthearted poem which he had written as a Christmas gift for his six children.

Strangely, More was an austere man who frowned upon merrymaking and comported himself with a solemnity befitting a Christian man of letters. Moore, who finished first in his class at Columbia and later produced the first Hebrew lexicon in the United States, was mindful of his literary reputation and never intended his Christmas poem to be heard beyond the party.

The poem describes the Christmas Eve activities of St. Nicholas, the beloved fourth-century patron saint of children. The cult of St. Nicholas had died in Europe with the Protestant Reformation, except in the Netherlands, where, on December 5 of each year, Dutch children would set out their shoes in the hope that Sinterklass (sinter means saint, and Klaas is the Dutch short form of Nicholas) would leave them candy and not a lump of coal. Moore was not Dutch but was familiar with the St. Nicholas tradition. Moore picked up some aspects of St. Nicholas from the legend and added others including his being plump, jolly, red nosed, white-bearded, going down the chimney and riding a sleigh pulled by reindeers.

A year after reading the poem at the party, a friend submitted it to the Troy, New York Sentinel which published it anonymously. The poem spread quickly and became a sensation. It has become a beloved poem of the Christmas season. Moore, who died in 1863, lived to see his poem treasured by millions as an enchanting evocation of the season’s essence and become the template for the character of Santa Claus. Today, Moore is remembered at Columbia’s annual Yule Log festivities, which have long included a recitation of “A Visit from St. Nicholas.”