This Week in History: ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas’
- ANTONE PIERUCCI
- Posted On
We have a tradition in my family, one I know we share with many.
On Christmas Eve when I was a kid, after our extended family had left for the night and my parents were gearing up for a late night of setting out presents, my brother and I would reach for a well-worn pop-up book copy of “Twas the Night Before Christmas.”
Many of the pop-up tabs had long since been torn, so that St. Nick didn’t so much “pop” as “dangle” from the page, but as kids, on the evening before the greatest day of the year, we didn’t care. My mother would read us the book.
It told a story both familiar and yet not – a true fairytale.
The tale had the usual cast of characters. We recognized Santa easily enough, although his coat was trimmed in more gold than our shabby Coca Cola version of him is. Other bits of the story were more foreign to us (what, after all, are sugar plums?), but that just added to the flair of the book.
Reading this short poem remains a tradition, even if my brother, mother and I aren’t always together every Christmas Eve, and my brother and I don’t sit on her lap when we are. You can imagine my surprise, then, when I discovered that the text of this most beloved of childhood storybooks was different, in some very key respects, to the original poem.
The original poem was published on Dec. 23, 1823, in New York's “Troy Sentinel.” Below is the complete text of the original poem:
‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro’ the house,
2 Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
3 The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
4 In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
5 The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
6 While visions of sugar plums danc’d in their heads,
7 And Mama in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,
8 Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap-
9 When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
10 I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
11 Away to the window I flew like a flash,
12 Tore open the shutters, and threw up the sash.
13 The moon on the breast of the new fallen snow,
14 Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below;
15 When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
16 But a minature sleigh, and eight tiny rein-deer,
17 With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
18 I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
19 More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
20 And he whistled, and shouted, and call’d them by name:
21 “Now! Dasher, now! Dancer, now! Prancer, and Vixen,
22 “On! Comet, on! Cupid, on! Dunder and Blixem;
23 “To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
24 “Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!”
25 As dry leaves before the wild hurricane fly,
26 When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;
27 So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
28 With the sleigh full of Toys - and St. Nicholas too:
29 And then in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
30 The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
31 As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
32 Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound:
33 He was dress’d all in fur, from his head to his foot,
34 And his clothes were all tarnish’d with ashes and soot;
35 A bundle of toys was flung on his back,
36 And he look’d like a peddler just opening his pack:
37 His eyes - how they twinkled! his dimples how merry,
38 His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry;
39 His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
40 And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;
41 The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
42 And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.
43 He had a broad face, and a little round belly
44 That shook when he laugh’d, like a bowl full of jelly:
45 He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
46 And I laugh’d when I saw him in spite of myself;
47 A wink of his eye and a twist of his head
48 Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.
49 He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
50 And fill’d all the stockings; then turn’d with a jerk,
51 And laying his finger aside of his nose
52 And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose.
53 He sprung to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
54 And away they all flew, like the down of a thistle:
55 But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight-
56 Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.
Did you notice the differences? I’m sure our pop-up book version wasn’t the only one edited. The most important differences are in the names of the reindeer. Notice that “Donner and Blitzen” were originally “Dunder and Blixem.”
Why does this matter? Well, for one, it throws a wrench in ascribing the authorship of the poem.
When it was published in 1823, it was printed with no name attached. It wasn’t until 13 years later that American professor and poet Clement Clarke Moore claimed ownership of the by-then famous holiday poem.
The problem was, the children of a certain Henry Livingston Jr. claimed their father had recited that poem to them every year for 15 years before it made its public debut.
And that’s where Dunder and Blixem come into play. Livingston came from a Dutch family, and the poem “A Visit from St. Nick” (the original title) has traces of Dutch references all over it.
The traditions of stockings and the depiction of St. Nick had long been features of Dutch Christmas tales (along with some other unsavory ones like Krampus, etc.).
The most explicit references are the names of two of the reindeer: Dunder, which means Thunder in Dutch, and Blixem, which means Lightening (later the spellings of the Dutch words changed to “donder” and “bliksem”).
In the poem, Blixem first became Blixen to better rhyme with “Vixen” and then in 1844, when Moore published the poem in an anthology of his poetry, he changed it to the German form of “Blitzen.” Moore changed Dunder to Donder and in the early 20th century, it became Donner.
Other clues have led people to suspect that Livingston had indeed authored the poem, including the fact that the poem is completely different – in tone, style and meter – from anything Moore ever wrote, but was similar to poems written by Livingston.
We’ll never know who really wrote the poem, although Moore’s name is still attached to each published version.
I guess in the end, it doesn’t matter whether St. Nick called on Dunder and Blixem or Donner and Blitzen. The story is what matters, and the memories attached to it.
Happy Christmas to all and to all a good night!
Antone Pierucci is curator of history at the Riverside County Park and Open Space District and a freelance writer whose work has been featured in such magazines as Archaeology and Wild West as well as regional California newspapers.