“'Twas the night before Christmas…”
So opens the poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” which tells the story of a nighttime visit from Santa Claus to a family’s home. Coming down the chimney, jolly old St. Nick delivers toys for the narrator’s young children while his sleigh, pulled by eight flying reindeer, wait on the roof to take him to other children’s homes.
WHITE HOUSE PROMOTES 'IMPACTFUL' BIDENOMICS IN END-OF-YEAR MEMO
Saturday marks the 200th anniversary of the poem’s first publication in the Troy Sentinel, a paper that served part of upstate New York. Much later, a friend would peg Clement Clarke Moore as the author.
Moore was a biblical scholar and professor at the General Theological Seminary of the Protestant Episcopal Church. He had written other works, such as a Hebrew and English lexicon and an 1804 scathing indictment of Thomas Jefferson, accusing the third president of communicating heretical religious views in the founder’s “Notes on the State of Virginia.” Moore eventually would affirm his authorship of “A Visit” by including the work in a compilation of his poetry, though that authorship has been disputed.
Regardless, “A Visit from St. Nicholas” has become central to our celebration of Christmas. In particular, it has helped form and maintain the myth of Santa Claus in our popular imagination. For nearly no modern rendering of Kris Kringle does not in some way pay homage to or otherwise interact with the poem.
We should be thankful for the poem’s contribution to this myth. It certainly brings delight to little children, feeding their anticipation and stoking their imagination. But it does much for us as a people, too. The poem contributes to a common story we share as Americans. Our stories need not only retell actual historical events. Instead, we can hold myths in common together, myths true in what they communicate about the world and about ourselves. This common story, however subtly, does so, reinforcing essential values and virtues we would do well to remember.
For one, “A Visit” communicates the blessing that we have in children. St. Nicholas visits a household full of them, all fast asleep and dreaming of dancing sugarplums. Parenting children is hard. It does not always seem like a blessing. But it is worth it. It is worth it in that we raise up a new generation of citizens. But it also is worth it in the wonder and joy they hold, expressed so buoyantly in anticipating a visit from Santa. We live in such cynical and jaded times. Yet this myth can melt our stony hearts, if only for a little while.
For another, the poem supports the importance of fathers. The father discovers Santa because he is on his guard, hearing and investigating strange nighttime sounds outside and above. The father is protecting the home while his children, secure under such protection, sleep the whole episode away. The father’s diligence confirms Santa as a benevolent intruder, since “a wink of his eye and a twist of his head / Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.” We need fathers more than ever to model service and self-government to our children like we see in this father.
Finally, the poem cements the place of gift-giving in the Christmas holiday. Many like to complain about the commercialization of Christmas. They have a point in the excesses we witness each year. But beneath the excess is an important good. Christmas ultimately celebrates the birth of Jesus as the incarnate Son of God. Christians see that birth as a gift from God, a gift that leads to perfect peace with our Creator and eternal salvation from sin and suffering. We give and receive gifts with each other as an image of that divine gift. Santa’s improbable one-night run reminds us that behind Christmas gifts resides the miraculous, a supernatural manifestation of God’s love. As so many search for meaning in this life and beyond, this poem hints toward Christmas’s answer.
“A Visit from St. Nicholas” has been a gift to us Americans these past two centuries. May we imbibe its mythical values all the more this year.
“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”
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Adam Carrington is an associate professor of politics at Hillsdale College.
Why we should be thankful for our Christmas myth
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23.12.2023
“'Twas the night before Christmas…”
So opens the poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” which tells the story of a nighttime visit from Santa Claus to a family’s home. Coming down the chimney, jolly old St. Nick delivers toys for the narrator’s young children while his sleigh, pulled by eight flying reindeer, wait on the roof to take him to other children’s homes.
WHITE HOUSE PROMOTES 'IMPACTFUL' BIDENOMICS IN END-OF-YEAR MEMO
Saturday marks the 200th anniversary of the poem’s first publication in the Troy Sentinel, a paper that served part of upstate New York. Much later, a friend would peg Clement Clarke Moore as the author.
Moore was a biblical scholar and professor at the General Theological Seminary of the Protestant Episcopal Church. He had written other works, such as a Hebrew and English lexicon and an 1804 scathing indictment of Thomas Jefferson, accusing the third president of communicating heretical religious views in the founder’s “Notes on the State of Virginia.” Moore eventually would affirm his........
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