It was Christmas Eve in 1822 that a poem followed St. Nicholas, aka Santa Claus, on his rounds.
The poem has had a huge influence on how we talk about Santa and what he does at the holidays, even if the man most often credited with writing that poem once wanted to keep it at arm’s length.
The poem is officially called “A Visit From St. Nicholas,” also known today for its first line, “Twas The Night Before Christmas.”
While there is a competing claim that the poem came from a Henry Livingston Jr., most scholars name the author as Clement Clarke Moore.
He was a rather eminent professor of language and literature at the General Theological Seminary in New York, and a member of a very prominent family.
Moore’s father, Benjamin, had served as bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church of New York, and was the clergyman who offered communion to Alexander Hamilton after his notorious duel with Aaron Burr.
There are several stories about how the poem came about, but a common one holds that on Christmas Eve 1822, Clement Clarke Moore went out shopping to fill some charity gift baskets.
He went from shop to shop on a sleigh driven by a large Dutch man with a thick beard.
That night, Moore took some inspiration from his errands (and, according to literary experts, from a recent depiction of Santa by Washington Irving) and wrote up a tale of St. Nicholas dropping off presents at a house on Christmas Eve, surprising and delighting the person inside.
The poem was only meant to amuse his kids, but the following December, a relative who stayed with the family heard it and sent a copy of the poem to a newspaper.
The paper published it, not knowing who the author was.
Other papers republished the poem, and its popularity grew about as fast as eight reindeer could fly through the night sky.
Everybody seemed to love it, but Clement Clarke Moore was sort of an exception.
Moore was a scholar, after all! He wanted people to read his serious work, not just a poem he’d intended only for the ears of his offspring.
But that didn’t last too long.
Over time he realized, how many of us write a poem that resonates with people all over the world and shapes our understanding of the character at the center of the biggest holiday on the calendar?
That’s an audience a writer doesn’t mind having after all.
Speaking of St. Nick, did you know that there was once a tourist town in Arizona called Santa Claus?
Atlas Obscura reports the idea for a warm winter getaway came together in 1937, but only lasted until about 1949.
Its most famous feature was the post office, because kids could get letters with a Santa Claus postmark.
Time for a Visit from St. Nicholas (Library of Congress)
Santa Claus, Arizona (Atlas Obscura)
We’re directing Santa toward our Patreon backers, since they’ve been so good this year
