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

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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. Clement Moore, the author of this poem ’Twas the Night Before Christmas, was a reticent man and it is believed that a family friend, Miss H. Butler, sent a copy of the poem to the New York Sentinel who published the poem. The condition of publication was that the author of ’Twas the Night Before Christmas was to remain anonymous. During that time professors were highly respected people in the society and it was shameful for them to author any works for children. The poem was first published on 23rd December 1823 and it was an immediate success. The reason? It set the most appealing and now widely-accepted image of Santa Claus: with his toy-giving activity on Christmas Eve with his sleigh and pulled by the eight reindeers including their individual names. From then on, the tradition of reading ’Twas the Night Before Christmas poem on Christmas Eve is now a worldwide institution and tradition. Moore said to have been inspired by a trader whom he saw doing retails one Christmas morning with goods on a sleigh and also, of course, the image of St. Nicholas.

I have read this story every Christmas Eve for as long as I can remember, it's always been part of our Christmas traditions and it will always have a special place in my part because of that. Clement Clarke Moore (July 15, 1779 - July 10, 1863) was an American writer and Professor of Oriental and Greek Literature.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. Sounds like someone from NY who has never seen a hurricane, possibly Clement Moore himself, possibly the one from whom some say he borrowed it.

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. But go ahead, you, too, read this aloud Christmas Eve or on Christmas to someone or someones. It's not fake news; my mom swore every word is true, and I never knew her to tell a lie: 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!? Moore’s template for the Santa that he drew through his poetry soon replaced the centuries old characteristic depictions of St. Nicholas of Europe. The poem also influenced the ideas of Christmas Eve gifting and is believed to have popularized the concept of Santa visiting homes on Christmas Eve bearing gifts in America. The conclusion of the poem as illustrated by Jessie Willcox Smith - from the 1912 edition of ‘Twas the night before Christmas’The poetry was soon reprinted in many newspapers and magazines and was also adapted for many musical renderings. Once this command has been given, the poet offers one more descriptive flourish, and then the eight reindeer display their most famous magical ability: 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.

There it is: the reindeer have names – names that will live on as long as December 25th is celebrated as a holiday. Clement C. Moore, who wrote the poem, never expected that he would be remembered by it. If he expected to be famous at all as a writer, he thought it would be because of the Hebrew Dictionary that he wrote. He was born in a house near Chelsea Square, New York City, in 1781; and he lived there all his life. It was a great big house, with fireplaces in it; -- just the house to be living in on Christmas Eve. Once the worried homeowner has flown like a flash to his bedroom window, opened the shutters, and raised the sash, he engages in an oft-overlooked bit of elaborate 19th-century description – “The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow/Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below”. And against that brightly lit winter night-time landscape, the reader gets a first sight of “a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer.”So it was Moore who started this idea of children to believe in Santa Claus. Did he do us a favor? Or is it high time that we stop this crap altogether? 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). 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?