The Night Before Christmas

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Clement Clarke Moore, (July 15, 1779 – July 10, 1863), is best known as the credited author of A Visit From St. Nicholas (more commonly known today as Twas the Night Before Christmas). Once the worried homeowner has flown like a flash to his bedroom window, opened the shutters, and raised the sash, he engages in an oft-overlooked bit of elaborate 19th-century description – “The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow/Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below”. And against that brightly lit winter night-time landscape, the reader gets a first sight of “a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer.” A Visit from St. Nicholas" (also known as "'Twas the Night Before Christmas", 1823) attributed to Clement Clarke Moore Jessie Willcox Smith (right side, facing the camera) with artist Violet Oakley (left side, facing the camera), illustrator Elizabeth Shippen Green and horticulturist Henrietta Preface Cozens, a mutual friend of the three artists. Photograph from the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Strong, George Templeton (1952). Diary, Vol 1: Young Man in New York, 1835-1849. Internet Archive. New York: Macmillan. p.326.Fact: Moore celebrated Christmas and also wrote what is probably the first “letter” from Santa Claus. Foster depicts the scholar as a self-righteous, moralizing paragon of rectitude who we can’t wait to deflate. (Foster 227) Moore was incapable of writing this poem, Foster argues, because he was a rich, all-around nasty person, who hated noisy kids, and by the way, his sons were all philanderers. Moore was “a grouchy pedant, a student of ancient Hebrew who never had a day of fun in his life. In fact he was against it” (Foster 227). This morning while I was about to drop her at the gate of her school, she again borrowed the rosary hanging on the rearview mirror of my car. The rosary was a gift from my friend who attended the World Youth’s Day in Brazil this year so I am proud of it and taking care of it. The beads are made of wood and each mystery has its own color. As my daughter was removing it from the mirror I told her that I will *hint, hint* … or maybe Santa Claus will… give her a rosary for Christmas so she will stop borrowing my rosary. She sweetly smiled as if in acceptance that a rosary would be a nice gift from Santa. She is now 17. Moore’s template for the Santa that he drew through his poetry soon replaced the centuries old characteristic depictions of St. Nicholas of Europe. The poem also influenced the ideas of Christmas Eve gifting and is believed to have popularized the concept of Santa visiting homes on Christmas Eve bearing gifts in America.

a b "Clement Clarke Moore and Santa in the City". www.mcny.org. Museum of the City of New York . Retrieved January 18, 2019. When the government of New York City decided on a street grid in Manhattan, based on the Commissioner's Plan of 1811, the new Ninth Avenue was projected to go through the middle of the Chelsea estate. In 1818, Moore wrote and published a pamphlet calling on other "Proprietors of Real Estate" to oppose the manner in which the city was being developed. He thought it was a conspiracy designed to increase political patronage and appease the city's working class, and argued that making landowners bear the costs of the streets laid through their property was "a tyranny no monarch in Europe would dare to exercise." He also criticized the grid plan and the flattening of hills as ill-advised. [31] Lowe, James. "A Christmas to Remember: A Visit from St. Nicholas," Autograph Collector, January 2000, pp. 26–29 a b Genealogical Record of the Saint Nicholas Society: Advanced Sheets, First Series. Saint Nicholas Society of the City of New York. 1902. p.42 . Retrieved January 18, 2019. The manner in which the speaker insists upon the miniature size of the sleigh and reindeer may seem a curiosity to us nowadays, as the sleigh and the eight reindeer are always depicted in modern Christmas tales as being full-size. But given the “elf” references that appear throughout the poem, the poet may have felt obligated to make these future archetypes of the Christmas holiday “elfin” in nature by reducing their size.

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Do parents need to stop encouraging their young children to believe in Santa Claus? When the child grows up, are parents expected to correct this by saying something like, ”Now that you are a grownup, sorry if we fooled you but there is no Santa.” Clement Clarke Moore Park, located at 10th Avenue and 22nd Street in Chelsea, is named after Moore.