The Night Before Christmas (Pop-up book): The perfect Christmas gift with super-sized pop-up!

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At what age did you stop believing in Santa Claus? Last Christmas, I still had to buy something for my daughter and wrote “From: Santa Claus” on the gift tag because she still believed in him. She was 16. This morning while I was about to drop her at the gate of her school, she again borrowed the rosary hanging on the rearview mirror of my car. The rosary was a gift from my friend who attended the World Youth’s Day in Brazil this year so I am proud of it and taking care of it. The beads are made of wood and each mystery has its own color. As my daughter was removing it from the mirror I told her that I will *hint, hint* … or maybe Santa Claus will… give her a rosary for Christmas so she will stop borrowing my rosary. She sweetly smiled as if in acceptance that a rosary would be a nice gift from Santa. She is now 17. The conclusion of the poem as illustrated by Jessie Willcox Smith - from the 1912 edition of ‘Twas the night before Christmas’

How many decades ago did I memorize this poem, "Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash...." Does any kid now hearing this know what a "sash" is, not to mention a chimney etc. "As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly...": now as we await the wet leaves--and yacht boating boots--of the Republicans at their national convention hall in Tampa, a full foot above sea level at least: has anyone ever seen DRY leaves flying before a hurricane?Clement C. Moore was more famous in his own day as a professor of Oriental and Greek literature at Columbia College (now Columbia University) and at General Theological Seminary, who compiled a two volume Hebrew dictionary. He was the only son of Benjamin Moore, a president of Columbia College and bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New York, and his wife Charity Clarke. Clement Clarke Moore was a graduate of Columbia College (1798), where he earned both his B.A. and his M.A.. He was made professor of Biblical learning in the General Theological Seminary in New York (1821), a post that he held until 1850. The ground on which the seminary now stands was his gift. [1] From 1840 to 1850, he was a board member of The New York Institution for the Blind at 34th Street and 9th Avenue (now The New York Institute for Special Education). He compiled a Hebrew and English Lexicon (1809), and published a collection of poems (1844). Upon his death in 1863 at his summer residence in Newport, Rhode Island, his funeral was held in Trinity Church, Newport, where he had owned a pew. Then his body was interred in the cemetery at St. Luke's Episcopal Church on Hudson St., in New York City. On November 29, 1899, his body was reinterred in Trinity Churchyard Cemetery in New York. There it is: the reindeer have names – names that will live on as long as December 25th is celebrated as a holiday. We can all agree that the poet’s depiction of Saint Nicholas is vivid, with immediate sensory appeal and compelling characterization: This much awaited picture book was really disappointing, I love this illustrator and was expecting another 5 star read. Maybe there was something wrong with my copy but the images were so dark you couldn't make out what they were unless you read directly under a very bright light. It's disappointing it's so dark, you can't read this by candlelight or firelight, it's too dark to read by a bedside light which is probably where most people will be reading or attempting to read this one. Even the cover was much darker than the image here on Goodreads and you could barely make out what it was. Clement Clarke Moore, (July 15, 1779 – July 10, 1863), is best known as the credited author of A Visit From St. Nicholas (more commonly known today as Twas the Night Before Christmas).

Please note that the reindeer do indeed fly, but only in response to Saint Nicholas’ command, and only for the purpose of getting the sleigh up and onto the roof; evidently, up until that point, the sleigh and its reindeer simply went dashing through the snow just the way less magically-adept people’s horse-drawn sleighs do. The speaker of the poem hears the hoof-prints of reindeer “prancing and pawing” on his roof; and then, just as he’s closing his window, “Down the chimney Saint Nicholas came with a bound!” The poem takes on particular interest for the modern viewer here, as the speaker gets his first clear look at a Saint Nicholas who appears quite different from the Santa Claus of today: Every year, in some fashion, I read this aloud to the kids. This is one of the old classic illustrated versions, more for me than the kids, in a way, though we have five versions of it around the house this time. Everyone likes it, though this year the eldest mimics some of the action that I describe, lightly making fun of it. He has this idea Santa no longer exists! Where do these kids nowadays get this fake news!? The manner in which the speaker insists upon the miniature size of the sleigh and reindeer may seem a curiosity to us nowadays, as the sleigh and the eight reindeer are always depicted in modern Christmas tales as being full-size. But given the “elf” references that appear throughout the poem, the poet may have felt obligated to make these future archetypes of the Christmas holiday “elfin” in nature by reducing their size. A scan of the poem, which was printed in the December 29, 1877 issue of ‘Home Circle’ newspaper, published from Boston.

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This piece of poem that Moore wrote for his children Margaret, Charity and Mary influenced the physical appearance and the jolly bright personality of St. Nicholas in American popular culture pretty soon. Jessie Willcox Smith (right side, facing the camera) with artist Violet Oakley (left side, facing the camera), illustrator Elizabeth Shippen Green and horticulturist Henrietta Preface Cozens, a mutual friend of the three artists. Photograph from the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Our daughter and I had not read this together since she was very little but she could still recite some passages as I read. At age 12, near 13, she thinks that she is too old and mature for many "childish" things, but not for this classic beloved Christmas poem. One sign of her growing maturity is that she was also interested in my telling her facts about Dr. Clement Moore from the very good introduction to this free Kindle edition. Unfortunately, as usual, there were no illustrations in this edition. Much of the neighborhood was once the property of Maj. Thomas Clarke, Clement's maternal grandfather and a retired British veteran of the French and Indian War. Clarke named his house for a hospital in London that served war veterans. 'Chelsea' was later inherited by Thomas Clarke's daughter, Charity Clarke Moore, and ultimately by grandson Clement and his family. Clement Clarke Moore's wife, Catharine Elizabeth Taylor, was of English and Dutch descent being a direct descendant of the Van Cortlandt family, once the major landholders in the lower Hudson Valley of New York. The Moore house, Chelsea, at the time a country estate, gave its name to the surrounding neighborhood of Chelsea, Manhattan, and Moore's land in the area is noted today by Clement Clark Moore Park, located at 10th Avenue and 22nd Street. The playground there opened November 22, 1968, and it was named in memory of Clement Clarke Moore by local law during the following year. The 1995 renovations to Clement Clarke Moore Park included a new perimeter fence, modular play equipment, safety surfacing, pavements and transplanted trees. This park is a popular playground area for local residents, who gather there the last Sunday of Advent for a reading of Twas the Night Before Christmas. [2]

Once this command has been given, the poet offers one more descriptive flourish, and then the eight reindeer display their most famous magical ability: As a girl, Moore's mother, Charity Clarke, wrote letters to her English cousins that are preserved at Columbia University and show her disdain for the policies of the English Monarchy and her growing sense of patriotism in pre-revolutionary days.The illustrations in this edition reflect the spirit and joy of Christmas and they portray the wonder, the cheer and the anticipation, in children on the night of Christmas Eve. And that scene too has become thoroughly familiar to us, even if relatively few people, young or old, eat sugarplums nowadays.