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'Twas the Night Before Christmas
- 109 statements
- 20 feature instances
- 14 referencing feature instances
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas | type |
TVTItem | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas | label |
'Twas the Night Before Christmas | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas | page |
TwasTheNightBeforeChristmas | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas | comment |
Originally titled (and also known as) A Visit from St. Nicholas, this 1823 poem — first published anonymously but subsequently attributed to the American Episcopalian scholar Clement Clarke Moore — is about one household's, well, visit from St. Nicholas.A perennial favorite for Christmastime reading, the poem is considered the Trope Codifier for a lot of the popular imagery of Santa Claus, up to and including his reindeer and their names.note The Trope Maker for the creation of the specific American depiction of Santa is thought to be Washington Irving's satire A History of New York, From the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty, also known as Knickerbocker's History of New York, though Santa himself (or rather, the archetype of what would later be known as "Santa Claus") is believed to be much much older Being such an iconic work, it has also been parodied and spoofed enough to merit its own trope: The Parody Before Christmas. (Funnily enough, the poem itself features a fat smoking caricature of St. Nicholas, so it's basically a Spoofing Spoofiness situation.) A related spoof is for somebody to mix up the names of the eight reindeer in particular; that's Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, and Nixon.Here it is as read by none other than the trumpet master Louis Armstrong, himself. | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas | fetched |
2024-03-24T06:16:11Z | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas | parsed |
2024-03-24T06:16:11Z | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas | processingComment |
Dropped link to RudolphTheRedNosedReindeer: Not a Feature - ITEM | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas | isPartOf |
DBTropes | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_17b5862b | type |
Chariot Pulled by Cats | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_17b5862b | comment |
Chariot Pulled by Cats: Santa Claus flies around on a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer, an image that has endured in the Santa Claus mythos. | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_17b5862b | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_17b5862b | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas | hasFeature |
'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_17b5862b | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_294ed981 | type |
Bilingual Bonus | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_294ed981 | comment |
Bilingual Bonus: Santa's last pair of reindeer are named Donner and Blitzen, German for "thunder" and "lightning", respectively. | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_294ed981 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_294ed981 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas | hasFeature |
'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_294ed981 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_393da8a1 | type |
Secret Message Wink | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_393da8a1 | comment |
Secret Message Wink: "A wink of his eye and a twist of his head / Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread." St. Nick's wink to the narrator lets him know that although the situation seems strange and even supernatural, he means no harm. | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_393da8a1 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_393da8a1 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas | hasFeature |
'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_393da8a1 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_3d5377e5 | type |
First-Person Peripheral Narrator | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_3d5377e5 | comment |
First-Person Peripheral Narrator: The narrator is the husband and father of the family, who watches St Nick coming and going. | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_3d5377e5 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_3d5377e5 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas | hasFeature |
'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_3d5377e5 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_44bd31e2 | type |
Trope Codifier | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_44bd31e2 | comment |
Trope Codifier: As stated above, this little poem etched in stone a lot of the core image we have of Santa Claus. | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_44bd31e2 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_44bd31e2 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas | hasFeature |
'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_44bd31e2 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_4f4372e9 | type |
Early-Installment Weirdness | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_4f4372e9 | comment |
Early-Installment Weirdness: It has elements that were dropped for later versions of the Santa Mythology: The man himself is never referred to as "Santa Claus," just as "St Nicholas." St Nick's described as being an elf himself here, whereas most later adaptations of Santa appear to be a human who employs a rather gnomish race of elf seemingly unique to the North Pole. He's said to "dress in all fur, from his head to his foot," whereas modern Santa wears a bright red overcoat with white fur trimmings. When was the last time you saw an animal with bright red fur? His sleigh and reindeer are described as "miniature" and "tiny" respectively, whereas with modern Santa they're almost universally depicted as normal-sized. The sleigh doesn't fly through the air in this poem; rather it's pulled on the ground until it reaches the house (the narrator hears it arrive "out on the lawn"), at which point it levitates to the roof. Also, Rudolph is of course not present, this work having been written more than a century prior to his introduction. St Nick actually originally said "Happy Christmas to all" in the original version. | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_4f4372e9 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_4f4372e9 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas | hasFeature |
'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_4f4372e9 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_596f675a | type |
Smoking Is Cool | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_596f675a | comment |
Smoking Is Cool: "The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth / And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath." Of course, modern depictions of Santa don't usually smoke. | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_596f675a | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_596f675a | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas | hasFeature |
'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_596f675a | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_5a40d6a | type |
Adaptation Distillation | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_5a40d6a | comment |
Adaptation Distillation: The poem crystallizes a number of ideas about St. Nicholas first found in Washington Irving's Knickerbocker History of New York. | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_5a40d6a | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_5a40d6a | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas | hasFeature |
'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_5a40d6a | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_64cde060 | type |
Christmas Elves | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_64cde060 | comment |
St Nick's described as being an elf himself here, whereas most later adaptations of Santa appear to be a human who employs a rather gnomish race of elf seemingly unique to the North Pole. | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_64cde060 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_64cde060 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas | hasFeature |
'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_64cde060 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_654b8be3 | type |
Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, and Nixon | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_654b8be3 | comment |
Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, and Nixon: Even the Ur-Example here is not immune from confusion about the reindeers' names. The original printing◊ identified the final two reindeer as "Dunder and Blixem" (Dutch in English spelling for "Thunder and Lightning"). The first anthologized printing, however, corrected them to "Donder and Blixen", supposedly to make it closer to the German spelling of the same words (and perhaps to improve the rhyme with "Vixen"). Clement Moore adopted the second spelling in the later anthology published under his own name. However, the closely related actual German words for thunder and lightning are "Donner" and "Blitzen," leading to those reindeers' names being changed even more in some later editions. | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_654b8be3 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_654b8be3 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas | hasFeature |
'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_654b8be3 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_7946ac19 | type |
White-Tailed Reindeer | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_7946ac19 | comment |
White-Tailed Reindeer: The Ur-Example, predating the Trope Codifier Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer by over a century. The reindeer are described as "tiny" despite real life reindeer being anything but. | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_7946ac19 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_7946ac19 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas | hasFeature |
'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_7946ac19 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_970c8a84 | type |
Big Fun | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_970c8a84 | comment |
Big Fun: St. Nicholas has "a broad face, and a little round belly / That shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly." | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_970c8a84 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_970c8a84 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas | hasFeature |
'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_970c8a84 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_9bf3470e | type |
Santa Claus | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_9bf3470e | comment |
Santa Claus: Who did you expect? The Easter Bunny? | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_9bf3470e | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_9bf3470e | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas | hasFeature |
'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_9bf3470e | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_b9f8c6f8 | type |
Sleeping Single | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_b9f8c6f8 | comment |
Sleeping Single: Implied for the narrator and his wife in Bowdlerised versions of the poem: in the original text, after describing himself and his wife preparing to go to sleep, the narrator says that at the sound of the sleigh outside, "I sprang from the bed," but most subsequent reprints change it to "I sprang from my bed." | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_b9f8c6f8 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_b9f8c6f8 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas | hasFeature |
'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_b9f8c6f8 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_ca81eae7 | type |
Hollywood Darkness | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_ca81eae7 | comment |
Hollywood Darkness: Played with. "The moon on the crest of the newfallen snow / Gave a lustre of midday to objects below." | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_ca81eae7 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_ca81eae7 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas | hasFeature |
'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_ca81eae7 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_cfeb01b3 | type |
Title Confusion | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_cfeb01b3 | comment |
Title Confusion: The poem was originally called A Visit from St. Nicholas, but its opening line is what everyone knows it by. | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_cfeb01b3 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_cfeb01b3 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas | hasFeature |
'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_cfeb01b3 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_e1721fd1 | type |
Antiquated Linguistics | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_e1721fd1 | comment |
Antiquated Linguistics: The archaic word "ere" (meaning "before") is sometimes updated to "as", despite that changing the meaning a bit. | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_e1721fd1 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_e1721fd1 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas | hasFeature |
'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_e1721fd1 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_f0e85546 | type |
Unbuilt Trope | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_f0e85546 | comment |
Unbuilt Trope: While most of the poem's depiction of Santa still matches the popular imagery, the idea of him as an "elf" with a "miniature sleigh" and "tiny reindeer" fell out of favor a long time ago. | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_f0e85546 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_f0e85546 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas | hasFeature |
'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_f0e85546 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_fa6bfde9 | type |
Have a Gay Old Time | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_fa6bfde9 | comment |
Have a Gay Old Time: The original publication contained the line "The moon, on the breast of the newfallen snow..." In later printings this tends to get bowdlerised to "crest." | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_fa6bfde9 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_fa6bfde9 | featureConfidence |
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| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas | hasFeature |
'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_fa6bfde9 | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_name | type |
ItemName | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_name | comment |
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| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_name | featureApplicability |
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| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_name | featureConfidence |
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| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas | hasFeature |
'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_name | |
| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas / int_name | itemName |
'Twas the Night Before Christmas |
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