'Tis December 24, the day before Christmas,
and all through the land, families will send excited children to bed... with a reading of Clement Moore's classic poem, "A Visit from St. Nicholas."
Moore is thought to have composed the tale, now popularly known as "The Night Before Christmas," on December 24, 1822, while traveling home from Greenwich Village, where he had bought a turkey for his family's Christmas dinner.
Inspired by the plump, bearded Dutchman who took him by sleigh on his errand through the snow-covered streets of New York City, Moore penned A Visit from St. Nicholas for the amusement of his six children, with whom he shared the poem that evening. His vision of St. Nicholas draws upon Dutch-American and Norwegian traditions of a magical, gift-giving figure who appears at Christmas time, as well as the German legend of a visitor who enters homes through chimneys. Clement Moore was born in 1779 into a prominent New York family. His father, Benjamin Moore, president of Columbia University, in his role as Episcopal Bishop of New York participated in the inauguration of George Washington as the nation's first president. The elder Moore also administered last rites to Alexander Hamilton after he was mortally wounded in a tragic duel with Aaron Burr.
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. He is said to have been embarrassed by the light-hearted verse, which was made public without his knowledge in December 1823. Moore did not publish it under his name until 1844.
Tonight, American children will be tucked in under their blankets and quilts and read this beloved poem as a last "sugarplum" before slipping into dreamland. Before they drift off, treat them to a message from Santa, recorded by the Thomas Edison Company in 1922.
Although the real Santa does not like to be seen, much less photographed, he and a lone reindeer have been sighted in the American Memory collections. To find more pictures of the jolly old elf, search the photographic collections on Santa Claus.
To hear Christmas music sung in a variety of languages, search on Christmas in California Gold: Folk Music from the Thirties, 1938-1940.
Search on the terms Christmas, holly, or Santa Claus in the following American sheet music collections to find songs appropriate to the season, such as "Miss Fogarty's Christmas Cake" by C. Frank Horn (1883) and "It Was My Father's Custom: A Merry Christmas Song" (undated song sheet):
- Music for the Nation, 1870-1885
- Historic American Sheet Music, 1850-1920
- America Singing: Nineteenth-Century Song Sheets
- Search the American Life Histories, 1936-1940 collection on Christmas Eve or Santa Claus to locate recollections of holidays past. After retrieving a list of hits, go to any item and use the BEST MATCH link in the page header to jump to the relevant segment of the piece.
- Visit the collection The American Variety Stage: Vaudeville and Popular Entertainment, 1870-1920 to view a 1935 Christmas card from Mrs. Harry Houdini.
- View Maryland quiltmaker Julia Weber's "Christmas Quilt," Maryland State Winner of 1992, in the collection Quilts and Quiltmaking in America: 1978-1996.
