Today marks the 200th anniversary of the poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” popularly known as “The Night Before Christmas” or “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.”
Clement Moore reportedly penned the poem on December 24, 1822, while traveling home from Greenwich Village, where he had bought a turkey to be donated to the poor. He read it to his children that night, and it was first published on December 23, 1823.
Moore, a professor of Oriental and Greek literature at the General Theological Seminary in Manhattan, was reportedly embarrassed by the light verse, and didn’t publish it under his own name until 1844.
Here, you can listen to the poem, read by Lorne Greene: