Culture | Holiday history

“’Twas the Night Before Christmas” turns 200 this year

How a poem created our modern Christmas customs

Father Christmas visits a group of children peering out a window in London, 22nd December 1950.
Image: Getty Images
|Troy, New York

It is one of the most famous poems in the English language—almost as famous as Christmas itself. A single word is enough to get going: “‘Twas”. You know the rest, or probably quite a bit of it.

This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “The poem that imagined modern Christmas”

From the December 23rd 2023 edition

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