“A Visit from St. Nicholas,” the famous poem by Clement Clarke Moore, turns 200 this year.
To honor the poet and poem, best known as "T’was the Night Before Christmas,” I developed educational material. I am happy to lead short 30-minute talks for individuals or groups in-person or on-line.
Here are three reasons I’m qualified to teach a class on this Christmas poem:
1) I am a professional Mrs. Claus.
That means I have been to the Charles W. Howard Santa Claus School in Midland Michigan. I have also worked at major New York City department stores.
As a founding president (now former president) of the New York City Santas, I hosted a meeting with a curator from the New-York Historical Society, who told us about C.C. Moore and the museum’s desk, on which he probably penned the poem.
Finally, I am often asked to read the poem. Some party organizers ask that I skip the “smoking” part, when Santa’s pipe smoke “encircled his head like a wreath.” Other places don’t care and let me recite the piece in its entirety, the way it first appeared in the Troy Sentinel on December 23, 1823.
2) During the pandemic, I gravitated toward poetry as an essential art form.
I didn’t have the bandwidth to read novels. Covid living was a metaphor for poetry, condensing so many emotions into confined physical spaces.
I picked up my old copies of books by Walt Whitman and Robert Frost. Then I ventured into the works of U.S. poet laureates Billy Collins, Joy Harjo, and Ada Limón.
Finally, I took classes, including an exceptional online ModPo class through the University of Pennsylvania.
I learned about Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman as the Adam and Eve of modern American poetry. Out of that lineage came the Imagist, Dadaist, Communist, Harlem Renaissance, Beat, New York School, and Language poets.
So while C.C. Moore is pre-Emily and Walt, I can see how he was inspired by European poetry traditions. (He writes in anapestic tetrameter!) But he adapted old forms to American narratives. In doing so, he asserted himself in a new way in a new country.
3) I have a Sightseeing Guide License in New York City.
My nerd-dom is official. For the past three seasons, I have been leading various on-line talks about Santa history. It’s a subject that makes me feel like an explorer.
Stay tuned. Follow me on Facebook and Instagram @mrsclausnyc to learn more. I will soon be looking for a test audience of non-paying but supportive participants.
