The Legendary Twas the Night Before Christmas Turns 200!
{From the 2023 Christmas Newsprint Magazine}
Written by Megin Potter | Photos provided
This year, in a multi-state celebration, the cherished poem, A Visit from St. Nicholas (aka “Twas the Night Before Christmas”) will be enjoyed by thousands, in hundreds of different events across the country. During the 37th Annual Saratoga Springs Downtown Business Association’s Victorian Streetwalk, Saratoga celebrates the bicentennial of the poem’s publication with Pamela McColl, author of Twas the Night Before Christmas: The Bicentennial Keepsake Edition of the Treasured Christmas Poem (2023) and Twas the Night: The Art and History of the Classic Christmas Poem (2022).
Twas the Night is a festive verse about the magic of Santa penned by Clement Clarke Moore and first published in the Troy Sentinel on December 23, 1823. Republished and reimagined thousands of times since then, Twas the Night has become one of the most well-known and oft-recited rhymes of all time.
The poem’s author, acclaimed scholar Clement C. Moore, a resident of Manhattan, NY, loved visiting Saratoga with his children, and in 1844, published A Trip to Saratoga about their voyage here one summer.
…Then, in a Twinkling…
With every artistic reinterpretation, storytellers and illustrators recreate Moore’s renowned rhyme for the next generation.
In recent evolutions, Canadian author Pamela McColl, Principal at Grafton & Scratch Publishers, shares her extensive knowledge of the poem’s history with a collection that took 10 years to complete. In Twas the Night: The Art and History of the Classic Christmas Poem, beautiful vintage illustrations and historical references are accompanied by other holiday poems from authors including Louisa May Alcott and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
…There Arose Such a Clatter…
Her newest evolution of Moore’s cheerful and impassioned prose, McColl’s Twas the Night Before Christmas: The Bicentennial Keepsake Edition of the Treasured Christmas Poem, illustrated by Elena Almazouva and Vitaly Shavaros, is a fun and lively version of the poem for children.
In 2012, McColl captured world-wide media attention with a “smoke-free” version, Twas the Night Before Christmas: Edited by Santa Claus for the Benefit of Children of the 21st Century.
Written to generate buzz around youth tobacco prevention, McColl omitted the lines “The stump of a pipe being held tight in his teeth. And smoke encircling his head in a wreath”. She also adds a letter from Santa denouncing that “old tired business of smoking” and mentions his suit is lined with faux fur trim (out of respect to the polar bears in the North Pole).
The story, which won seven book awards and became an Amazon Bestseller angered the American Library Association and was the subject of debate among celebrities including Stephen Colbert and John Stewart. Some Santa Claus fans who felt McColl censored their favorite fictional holiday figure sent her death threats, and once she was attacked at a book-signing event.
McColl said she isn’t in favor of censoring, but she does believe in editing. The longevity of the poem’s appeal, she added, is its message of kindness, peace, joy, love, and tolerance (a departure from earlier depictions featuring the notion of judging as naughty or nice) still resonates.
With a wink of his eye and a twist of his head, Santa is a jolly old elf who lets you know you have nothing to dread.
As families continue to share the poem Theodore Roosevelt read to his children, (and that every First Lady has read at the White House since 1953!) may there be a Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!
• On November 30th, Pamela McColl will be appearing in Saratoga, 10 a.m., at Northshire Bookstore, 424 Broadway, and 12 p.m. at Barnes & Noble, 3029 NY-50, Wilton.
For more information, go to twasthenightbook.com
