On December 23, 190 Years Ago…

“…a poem entitled ‘A Visit from St. Nicholas’ was published anonymously in the Troy Sentinel, an upstate New York newspaper. The unsigned poem began:

” ‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.’

“For a long time, ‘A Visit from St. Nicholas’ was attributed to New York seminary professor and poet Clement Clarke Moore, who was said to have written it as a Christmas gift for his children. But in recent years, it has been argued that Major Henry Livingston Jr. was the true author. The poem is largely responsible for the conception of Santa Claus as a tubby, bearded man in a red suit who travels in a package-laden sleigh pulled by eight flying reindeer.”

— The Writer’s Almanac