{"id":290,"date":"2014-07-15T18:15:00","date_gmt":"2014-07-15T18:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/clement-clarke-moore-day\/"},"modified":"2014-09-08T21:21:38","modified_gmt":"2014-09-08T21:21:38","slug":"clement-clarke-moore-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/clement-clarke-moore-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Clement Clarke Moore Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"clement-clarke-moore-3\"Today is Tuesday, July 15th, 2014 and there remains just 163 days until Christmas<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Today is Clement Clarke Moore<\/a> Day<\/em><\/strong>. Moore was the author of \u201cA Visit from St. Nicholas<\/a><\/em>\u201c, or, as many know it, \u201cTwas the Night Before Christmas<\/a><\/em>\u201c. <\/p>\n

Long before Dicken\u2019s<\/a> A Christmas<\/a> Carol<\/em> and Berlin\u2019s White Christmas<\/a><\/em> the first truly viral cultural phenomenon of Christmas<\/a> was Moore\u2019s classic poem. Written in the early 1820s the poem was never intended for anyone other than his children. Moore, a religious and educated man, supposedly wrote the poem while delivering Christmas<\/a> turkeys to the poor on a snowy Christmas<\/a> Eve. The poem somehow ended up anonymously published in the Troy, New York<\/a> Sentinel<\/em> in 1823\u2026and the rest is history. <\/p>\n

Picked up every holiday season by hundreds of newspapers nation-wide for years before Dickens hit the scene the poem not only helped to establish the popularity of Christmas<\/a> in America it forever redefined the physical attributes of Santa<\/a> Claus. In the nearly 200 years of annual re-publishing of the poem and countless interpretations of it in song, literature, stage and screen it is as close to Christmas<\/a> scripture as anything comes. <\/p>\n

The legend of the poem has led to controversy as some say Moore never wrote it at all but, rather, plagiarized it from Major Henry Livingston<\/a>, a distant relative of Moore\u2019s wife and a writer whose style was more closely associated with the theme and cadence of A Visit from St. Nicholas<\/em>. Researchers and historians have debated authorship for decades and, like the controversy over the origins over Jingle Bells<\/a><\/em>, this is a Christmas<\/a> controversy and mystery that may never be 100% satisfied. Moore\u2019s status as a Christmas<\/a> legend, however, is secure. The cultural world considers him the author and Christmas<\/a> celebrants all over love<\/a> the poem that bears his signature. <\/p>\n

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