The Night Before Christmas

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Twas the Night Before Christmas (2022) is a Hallmark Channel movie about a town's annual Christmas Eve courtroom production debating the true authorship of the poem. Sarah Bryan Miller. "Long saga behind composer's Christmas cantata". St. Louis Post Dispatch. 1 December 2017. Fact: Moore celebrated Christmas and also wrote what is probably the first “letter” from Santa Claus. Statement of Revenues and Disbursements | Account of the City of New York and Balance Sheet for December 31, 1901. 1902. p.25 . Retrieved January 18, 2019. Gardner, Martin (1991). The Annotated Night Before Christmas: A Collection Of Sequels, Parodies, And Imitations Of Clement Moore's Immortal Ballad About Santa Claus; Edited, with an introduction and notes, by Martin Gardner. Summit Books. ISBN 0-671-70839-2.

Rosewarne, Lauren (2017). Analyzing Christmas in Film: Santa to the Supernatural. Lexington Books. pp.132–133. ISBN 9781498541824 . Retrieved 15 September 2022. Moore's maternal grandfather was Major Thomas Clarke, an English officer who stayed in the colony after fighting in the French and Indian War. He owned the large Manhattan estate "Chelsea", then in the country north of the developed areas of the city. As a girl, Moore's mother Charity Clarke wrote letters to her English cousins. Preserved at Columbia University, these show her disdain for the policies of the British monarchy and her growing sense of patriotism in pre-Revolutionary days. Moore's grandmother Sarah Fish was a descendant of Elizabeth Fones and Joris Woolsey, one of the earlier settlers of Manhattan. [5] Moore's parents inherited the Chelsea estate, and deeded it to him in 1813. He earned great wealth by subdividing and developing it in the 19th century. [6] Moore, James W. (1903). Rev. John Moore of Newtown, Long Island, and some of his descendants. The Library of Congress. Easton, Pa., Printed for the publisher by the Chemical Publishing Co. p.108.

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] In the end, Foster bases a great deal of his claim on his high opinion of Henry Livingston, “an artist, journalist and poet… a free spirit and all-round merry old soul if ever there was one” (Foster 227). In today’s world, many would feel comfortable believing that we owe our much-loved “jolly old elf” of Christmas to a free spirit, not an earthbound pedant. But Moore’s creation is all the more moving, having arisen from the private heart and imagination of a publicly serious scholar. Nevius, Michelle & Nevius, James (2009), Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City, New York: Free Press, ISBN 141658997X , pp. 51–52 Washington Irving (1868). A History of New York: From the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty;[...]. G.P. Putnam and Son, 661 Broadway. p.144.

A word, first, about an authorship controversy that still swirls, like cold winter winds, around this beloved poem. While Moore, a classics professor and Episcopalian divine at New York’s General Theological Seminary, took credit in 1837 for the anonymously published 1823 poem, a number of critics and historians have joined with the family of Henry Livingston Jr., in claiming that Livingston, a New Yorker who served as a major in the Continental Army during the American Revolution, actually wrote the poem and regularly recited it to his children. From the introduction of the edition from 1912 we can perceive Moore’s motivation behind writing the poem. Read it again aloud last night. Merry Christmas, to all you who celebrate this day in one way or another, and may you have a happier New Year! I don't think there are many people out there that aren't familiar with this poem by Clement C. Moore that was originally published in 1823. Theres a reason it's a classic and that's because it captures the magic of Christmas. We've had many versions of the book over the years but the one we read from now is beautifully illustrated by Richard Johnson, this is such a gorgeous book and I can't imagine a Christmas without it!

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The poetry was soon reprinted in many newspapers and magazines and was also adapted for many musical renderings. This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sourcesin this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. 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). Clement Clarke Moore and Santa in the City | Museum of the City of New York". www.mcny.org . Retrieved June 15, 2023. Moore, Foster claims, disapproved of verse that was not spiritually useful and abhorred the veneration of saints – including St. Nicholas. “From Moore’s point of view,” states Foster, “Christmas was no time to be jolly, but a season for worship, for repentance from sin…. When the evidence is laid out on the table, one cannot help but wonder how “A Visit from St. Nicholas” ever came to be associated with an old curmudgeon like Clement Clarke Moore in the first place” (Foster 245; 266).

The speaker of the poem hears the hoof-prints of reindeer “prancing and pawing” on his roof; and then, just as he’s closing his window, “Down the chimney Saint Nicholas came with a bound!” The poem takes on particular interest for the modern viewer here, as the speaker gets his first clear look at a Saint Nicholas who appears quite different from the Santa Claus of today: Sonne, Niels Henry. "The Night Before Christmas": Who Wrote It? Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church, vol. 41, no. 4 (December 1972), pp.373–80. In 1813, Moore married Catherine Elizabeth Taylor, daughter of William Taylor and Elizabeth (née Van Cortlandt) Taylor. William Taylor was a New Jersey lawyer who had served as chief justice of Jamaica. [35] Elizabeth Van Cortlandt was a direct descendant of Stephanus Van Cortlandt, the first native-born mayor of New York City and first patroon of Van Cortlandt Manor, as well as the niece by marriage of Sir Edward Buller, 1st Baronet. [36] Together, Catherine and Clement Moore were the parents of nine children: [37]Lowe, James. "A Christmas to Remember: A Visit from St. Nicholas," Autograph Collector, January 2000, pp. 26–29 Nissenbaum, Stephen (1997). The Battle for Christmas: A Social and Cultural History of Christmas that Shows How It Was Transformed from an Unruly Carnival Season into the Quintessential American Family Holiday. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0-679-41223-9. Clement Clarke Moore (1779-1863) was the only child of Benjamin Moore, an Episcopalian minister and rector of Trinity Church in New York City. (The elder Moore would go on to become the Episcopal bishop of New York and president of Columbia College.) His mother, Charity Clarke, was a feisty American patriot. From his mother’s side of the family, Moore inherited the farmland that would, during his lifetime, become New York City’s Chelsea district. 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. Jo Stafford recorded a version of "'Twas The Night Before Christmas" as part of her 1955 album Happy Holiday. [36]