WVPB Staff Reads: A Visit From St. Nick

West Virginia Public Broadcasting is wishing you and your loved ones a happy holiday season. As we reflect on this past year and make plans for the new year, we want to thank you for supporting the work at WVPB.

To show our thanks, our staff and board members would like to present a reading of A Visit from St. Nicholas, also known as The Night Before Christmas.

We hope you enjoy it. Click the “Listen” button above to hear it, and scroll below for additional goodies.

A Visit From St. Nicholas

By Clement Clarke Moore

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;

The children were nestled all snug in their beds;
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;

Flip the pages below to read the 1862 version of the story.

And mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap,
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.

Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow,
Gave a lustre of midday to objects below,

When what to my wondering eyes did appear,
But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny rein-deer,

With a little old driver so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment he must be St. Nick.

More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name:
“Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen!

To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!”

Flip the pages below to read the 1864 version of the story.

As leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;
So up to the housetop the coursers they flew
With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too—

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;

A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a pedler just opening his pack.

His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples, how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow;

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath;

He had a broad face and a little round belly
That shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;

A wink of his eye and a twist of his head
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,

And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight—
“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”

A Visit From St. Nicholas  —  The Backstory

The following contains excerpts from an article Paul Hond wrote for the Columbia Magazine about Clement C. Moore.

On Christmas Eve 1822, Clement Clarke Moore, a newly minted professor of Greek and Hebrew literature at General Theological Seminary at Columbia University, permitted himself a flight of whimsy. He was hosting a holiday gathering in his three-story house and at some point in the evening he cleared his throat and began reading a lighthearted poem titled “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” which he had jotted down as a Christmas gift for his six children.

With guests and family assembled, Moore uttered what would become an immortal couplet: “’Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house / Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.” The poem describes the Christmas Eve antics of St. Nicholas, the beloved 4th century patron saint of children. 

As the story goes (and there are many stories), a Moore family friend, Harriet Butler of Troy, New York, heard Moore read the poem and asked to copy it down. A year later, at Christmastime, Butler’s friend Sarah Sackett submitted the unsigned poem to the Troy Sentinel, which published it anonymously. The poem, author unknown, spread to other papers, becoming an early 19th century viral sensation. 

It wasn’t until 1837 that poet and editor Charles Fenno Hoffman published the 28 rhyming couplets under Moore’s name in a collection called The New-York Book of Poetry. But Moore remained mum about his authorship and did not explicitly claim credit until 1844, when, after seeing the poem misattributed in the Washington National Intelligencer, he revealed himself as the author of “some lines, describing a visit from St. Nicholas, which I wrote many years ago … not for publication, but to amuse my children.”

That same year, he included “A Visit” in a book of his own poems.

Click here to read the full article.

Citations:

Moore, Clement Clarke, et al. A visit from Saint Nicholas. [New York: James G. Gregory, publisher, 1862] Pdf. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/24005582/>.

Moore, Clement Clarke, L. Prang & Co, and Marian S. Carson Collection. A visit from St. Nicholas. [Boston: Published by L. Prang & Co., 159 Washington St, 1864] Pdf. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/73169323/>.