‘Tis the day before Christmas, and Hanukkah, too, 

And the South Branch has uncovered a mystery for you… 

Anyone who recognizes the meter and rhyme scheme of the above parody will easily attribute it to “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” as it’s officially titled, but more often referred to as “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.”  Because today is Christmas Eve (among other things, including the first day of Hanukkah), I thought it would be fun to write a bit about Clement C. Moore, the person who I recognized as the author of the poem and maybe even include the poem here, but as I was researching whether or not the poem was in the public domain, I came across these words from www.poetryfoundation.org: ” Authorship is typically attributed now to Major Henry Livingston, Jr., whose great-grandson spent many years trying to establish Major Livingston as the author.”

Huh? I grew up reading this poem every Christmas Eve with my mom (until we switched to A Christmas Carol later in my reading life) and saw the author as Clement C. Moore. The South Branch has a fairly extensive collection of wonderfully different illustrated versions of this poem – all attributed to Clement C. Moore. The Library of Congress attributes the poem to Clement C. Moore. Who is this Henry Livingston Jr. of which the Poetry Foundation speaks? Has my childhood been a lie?

Part of the problem is that the poem was originally published anonymously on December 23, 1823 in the Troy Sentinel and it was fourteen years before it was attributed to anyone. A friend of Moore’s, Charles Fenno Hoffman attributed it to his friend in 1837 and Moore himself assented to having it appear in an anthology of his works in 1844. Henry Livingston died prior to the authorship claims in 1828 and never made the claim of authorship himself. However, at the turn of the century, Livingston’s surviving family began to claim authorship on his behalf, asserting family lore, including that he had recited the poem to his children prior to its publication in the Sentinel. In 2000, a  scholar specializing in authorial attribution from Vassar College insists that it was Livingston, not Moore who wrote the poem, citing that several Dutch words were originally used in the poem of which Moore, an American who spoke some German, would not have known, but Livingston, an American descendant of Dutch farmers, would have known. However, Moore is said to have been friends with Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow writer Washington Irving, whose familiarity with the Dutch traditions and culture in New York is well documented, and who wrote about St. Nicholas as smoking a pipe and laying a finger beside his nose before he disappeared (familiar images in the poem, yes?) in his A History of New York.

Encyclopedia Britannica claims that a “21-st Century, computer-aided analysis indicated that ‘A Visit from St. Nicholas’ showed more similarities to Livingston’s poetry than to Moore’s.” One would hope that Britannica would have a definitive answer, but it would appear that the debate still rages on. Mental Floss puts together an interesting article outlining both sides and the New York State Library has some interesting facts as well. If you’d like to hear the Livingston angle from the Vassar professor in a bit more detail, you can check it out here.

Sadly, I can’t put forth any answers for you here, but I did manage to solve one mystery:  even though authorship isn’t 100% certain, the poem is now in the public domain, so I am able to reproduce it here for you. Till next week, dear readers, have a safe and happy Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and anything else you may celebrate this time of year! Enjoy!

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St Nicholas soon would be there.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads.
And mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap.

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below.
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer.

With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name!

“Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! On, Cupid! on, Donner and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!”

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky.
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of Toys, and St Nicholas too.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St Nicholas came with a bound.

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot.
A bundle of Toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler, just opening his pack.

His eyes-how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow.

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly!

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself!
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings, then turned with a jerk.
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose!

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ‘ere he drove out of sight,
“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!”

Last year, I wrote a post about holiday entertaining help because this time of year can be a stressful one largely due to the fact that many people are, either willingly or reluctantly, entertaining family during the holidays. For me, the holidays are a great opportunity to get together and feed people and many of my best holiday memories center on gathering with my family around some type of food (though if you remember from last year, “food” is often translated to “cookies”).

While my tips and tricks that I mentioned last year still stand for me, I thought this year, I would focus on feeding  your holiday family. In discussing this, please note that I’ve always been a firm believer that blood doesn’t make a family, love does, so know that the term “family” used here can mean anyone with whom you are close, whose company you enjoy and feel you can trust to be in your inner circle. This does not, necessarily, mean blood relatives (although it certainly can). The late, great Jonathan Larson (composer of the musicals Tick, Tick… Boom and the runaway hit RENT offered a Peasant Feast every year around the holidays in which he brought friends old and new into his home as an ad hoc family. Anthony Rapp, who played Mark Cohen in RENT described it:

[Jonathan invited] us to his home and not in a formal way… It wasn’t like showing up on your best behavior. It was, “Welcome to my house for a peasant’s feast. Bring your food. We’ll have drink and food and sit and commune and share. This is my home, and it’s your home, and you are my friend.” And, he gave a toast in which he said, “This is a show about my friends, about my life, and you are my friends.”

This, to me, is the essence of the holidays and what family entertaining should be. Bringing people together around comforting, familiar food and sharing with each other. For me, the understanding that the holidays should be about sharing takes away a fair amount of the stress for the holidays. Because I enjoy it, I tend to experiment a bit with a couple of new recipes, but by and large, I focus on the tried-and-true family favorites that bring smiles year after year. This also helps alleviate holiday stress because when the recipes are familiar, there’s far less worry about them turning out well. There’s also the sense of coming home to a familiar recipe and the process of making that recipe can bring back good memories, heightening your enjoyment of the experience, and taking some of the focus away from the final product.

If you are considering going with tried-and-true favorites that are more likely to bring smiles, you may want to check out some of these books, that focus on family entertaining a focus on ease and sharing:

Grandbaby Cakes: Modern Recipes * Vintage Charm * Soulful Memories by Jocelyn Delk Adams

Carla Hall’s forward to this book talks about good food hugging you and that seems to sum up the overall feeling of this book. The recipes in here will easily be the star of the dessert show while still focusing on unfussy presentation and classic recipes that will bring good memories like pound cakes and sheet cakes. If you want your dessert to feel like tasting it will bring everyone home again you’ll find a sure-fire hit in this book.

Al Roker’s Hassle Free Holiday Cookbook by Al Roker

The operative term here is “Hassle Free”. I wouldn’t necessarily have considered Al Roker to be a holiday entertaining maven, but with recipes like “Store-Bought Eggnog with a Twist” and spoon bread, he ensures that the recipes here are easy to follow with a light introduction that keeps the tone festive and upbeat.  His Vanilla-Cinnamon Roasted Nuts is remarkably close to the recipe I’ve been using for years and make for a *very* addictive treat. While this book covers holidays year-round and focuses on Christian holidays (sadly, no Passover sader or Channukah latkes here), who says you can’t serve his Valentine’s Day stuffed mushrooms as an hors d’ovuvre for your holiday cocktail party?

The New Family Cookbook by the editors of America’s Test Kitchen

I’ll admit that I’m not necessarily the biggest America’s Test Kitchen fan, as they tend to focus on the “right” way to do things (as if there’s only one “right” way) and don’t necessarily account for people having different tastes (I happen to like my butterscotch blondies to be sweet, Mr. Kimball…). However, if you’re looking for some classic recipes to recover a family favorite and you need some step-by-step guidance, it’s hard to go wrong with the massive collection of recipes here. Since the focus of this book is family, you are all but guaranteed to find something that will make a crowd happy. Don’t try to cook your way through this book, though. It’s best used as a reference to find a reasonably fail-proof  recipe for holiday favorites like rack of lamb or pork loin and an abundance of desserts. This book has it covered from soup to nuts (literally), so peruse and see what you can find.

FamilyFun’s Cookies for Christmas ed. by Deanna F. Cook

Let’s not forget how much fun it can be to include the kids in the holiday preparations. This slim recipe book focuses on what many of us thing the holidays do best: cookies. From old-fashioned sugar cookies and classics like peanut butter blossoms to finally finding out how exactly one makes the sugar plum that Clement C. Moore’s children are dreaming about in his poem, you’ll get some great, easy recipes that can be tackled by families together. Or you can take some of the stress off yourself and let the kids (old enough to put cookies in the oven, naturally) loose to make their own holiday favorites.

However you choose to entertain whatever type of group you call “family” this holiday season, know that the library has your best interest at heart. Till next week, dear patrons, feel free to stop by and check out anything that might help you this season, even if it’s a little “escapism” reading or watching to help keep the holiday stress at bay.