The poem’s actual title is “A Visit From St. Nicholas,” but the above is the title by which many of us remember it.
I hope that you and yours enjoy a wonderful Christmas Eve tonight. Just make sure you are fast asleep when St. Nick arrives. (He can always tell!)
*****
“A Visit from St. Nicholas”
‘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, Donder 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 pedler 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.”
The perennial half-joking debate about whether “Die Hard” (1988) is a Christmas movie will be with us for a long time, I guess. Yes, it is a Christmas movie — not only does it take place on Christmas Eve, the holiday helps set up the plot. (Our protagonists are at the besieged Nakatomi Tower for a Christmas party.) It just happens to be an ironic Christmas movie, that’s all.
And if we’re on the subject of ironic Christmas movies, I have to recommend “A Midnight Clear” (1992). It’s one of those films that doesn’t deserve its obscurity. It’s absolutely exceptional and poetic, which makes it maddening to me that a lot of people haven’t even heard of it.
I won’t describe it at length, because it’s one of those movies where “the less you know, the more you’ll enjoy it.” (Even its central plot development is meant to be unexpected.) I’ve never seen the trailer for this, but I can only imagine that it fails to avoid at least some spoilers.
Suffice to say that “A Midnight Clear” is a truly great film — one I would rate a perfect 10. It’s perfect. It just might make you look at war differently.
It’s a collection of contradictions, too. It’s a war movie with an (arguably) pacifist message, and a “Christmas movie” that is absolutely mournful. (I am not actually suggesting that anyone watch it to feel festive.) It’s also a World War II movie made in the 90’s, but it feels as though it’s channeling the sadness and existential loss of the post-Vietnam 1970’s.
Again, if you choose to watch it, learn as little as possible about it beforehand. And be aware that it’s probably sadder than you think. Let me know what you think about it, too. I’m curious about how other people feel about it.
Scratch one thing off the bucket list — I finally got around to watching Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rebecca.” (A cinephilic uncle introduced me to a handful of the director’s better known classics when I was an adolescent — “Rebecca” was one that we never got around to.) Based on my own enjoyment of it, I’d rate this film an 8 out of 10.
Please bear in mind that this is one of the slower Hitchcock films. Until its plot accelerates toward its end, it spends much of its running length as a methodically paced, brooding Gothic romance and mystery. It’s also a psychological thriller, and you can tell that Hitchcock is working to translate onto the screen its character-focused source novel. (I haven’t read Daphne du Maurier’s eponymous 1938 book.)
“Rebecca’s” final act brings the viewer into familiar Hitchcock territory with some interesting surprises. What I liked best about seeing the director’s style, however, was his trademark sharp characters and dialogue — with both heroes and villains sparring in a dry-witted and rapid-fire fashion. It’s something you don’t often see today. I don’t think all old movies are like this — some of the “classics” I’ve been recommended are absolutely vapid. But Hitchcock treated his viewer as intelligent adults, and I think it’s part of the reason why people love him.
Yes, I do realize that only an approval-seeking pedant will broadcast the fact that he found an error in a newspaper headline. At least I’ve got that self-awareness thing going for me. And I make plenty of my own mistakes right here on this blog. Somebody called me on the unforgivable *your/you’re confusion just last week.
Hey, I spent a couple of years on the other side of the desk where this kind of nitpicking is concerned. When I was a reporter, there were people who positively loved to call us when they spotted a mistake.
If you’re ever inclined to do that yourself, then please bear two things in mind:
You are almost never the first one to alert the paper’s staff that an error has slipped past them. It’s usually spotted by someone either in the newsroom or in the advertising department, before anybody calls it in; and
Mistakes in headlines are rarely made by the reporter who wrote the story. They can usually be attributed to someone at the editorial level, who prepared the layout. (The editors read the stories’ content, and then draft an appropriate headline according to the amount of space allowed by the layout.)
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 