Five Times the Poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas" Was Parodied on Screen
Happy Holidays from PopPoetry! Here's look at some of my favorite uses of Clement C. Moore's poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas" in pop culture.
'Twas the night before Christmas
and all across the screens
a certain poem helped to tell
the story in countless scenes…
Clement C. Moore’s “A Visit from St. Nicholas” is without a doubt the most iconic Christmas poem. Often referred to by half of its famous first line, “Twas the night before Christmas,” the poem was first published anonymously in 1823. More than 20 years later, Moore took ownership of the poem and included it in his own collection of poetry.
Moore’s description of Santa Claus helped to codify the myth in America. The rosy cheeks and big white beard, the plump appearance, the twinkling eyes… all aspects that Moore borrowed and wove together from various extant legends and held together by the appearance of a Dutch friend he knew.
The poem is deeply narrative, so we often think of it as a story despite its verse form. Written in 26 pairs of rhyming couplets, “A Visit from St. Nicholas” has a sing-songy sound that makes it popular with readers both young and old. The simple rhyme scheme is also an aid to memory, which undoubtedly has added to its longevity. The expectation set up by the rhyme in the first line of a couplet is rapidly and pleasingly fulfilled by the second line of the couplet over and over again. Human beings love repetition and fulfillment, and one begets the other, here.
“A Visit from St. Nicholas” has made its way into pop culture, too. Its instant recognizability, familiar story, and predictable structure set audiences at ease and clue them in to the joke of its usage, which is often for comedic effect.
Read on for five of my favorite pop culture treatments of Moore’s poem.
Die Hard (1988)
'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, except for the four assholes
coming in the rear in standard two-by-two formation.
Many times when this poem is quoted on screen, a character piggybacks on its narrative structure to say something about what’s going on around them. In this iconic scene, hacker terrorist Theo (Clarence Gilyard) is describing what he sees on the security cameras as a SWAT team tries to break into Nakatomi Tower to take it back from the terrorists.
The contrast of the profanity with the sweet, nostalgic Christmas poem has a lot of 80s ’tude. We dig. And yes, Die Hard is absolutely a Christmas movie.
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989)
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and… and Eddie.
With a man in his pajamas... and a dog chain
tied to his wrists and ankles. What the…
In this scene, Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) is actually trying to read out the poem to his family from a book but is interrupted by the sight of his brother-in-law arriving with his “Christmas Present.”
The way the script weaves together Moore’s phrase “what to my wondering eyes should appear” with something Clark is actually seeing outside his own window is clever, and the way Clark’s recitation slowly unravels into madness mirrors the overall trajectory of the Christmas classic that we can all do as a monologue at my house.
Married With Children, S4 E12: “It’s a Bundyful Life” (1989)
'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house
No food was a-stirring, not even a mouse
Stockings were hung round Dad’s neck like a tie
Along with a note that said, “Presents or Die!”
Al Bundy (Ed O’Neill) is the ultimate put-upon lower-middle-class stereotype. In this scene, he’s had just about enough of the kids’ demands for presents, so he ties them up in tinsel to recite his own (lengthy!) version of Moore’s poem.
He keeps the rhyming couplets of the original but significantly darkens the subject matter to match the gritty, down-on-your-luck tone of exhausted 80s parents who are sick to death of the capitalist grind and magic-making requirement of the holiday.
The Santa Clause (1994)
CHARLIE: Look here dad, the Rose Suchak Ladder Company!
SCOTT: Huh?
CHARLIE: “Out by the roof there’s a Rose Suchak Ladder.” Just like the poem!
SCOTT: Just like the poem…?
This is by far the cleverest literalization of a funny, hard-to-understand-if-you’re-a-kid part of the poem.
Moore’s poem contains the lines “When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, / I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.” The words “arose” and “clatter” confuse Charlie in this scene, and the elision of the words into the phrase “arose such a clatter” lead him to a sweet mishearing: The Rose Suchak Ladder.
The movie weaves a ladder into the tale of how Santa gets around on Christmas Night, which redeems Charlie’s mishearing with a literal representation. It’s magical, and a key usage of the “kids know more than adults do” trope that’s so important to holiday movies and stories that center on belief (“Yes, Virginia,” anyone?)
Friends, S9 E10: “The One with the Christmas in Tulsa” (2002)
PHOEBE: “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—/ ‘Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!’”
JOEY: Wow! That was great! You really wrote that?
PHOEBE: … … … Uh huh!
This scene from the penultimate season of the long-running and not-aging-well sitcom Friends has its anodyne moments, and this is one of them. Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow) and Joey (Matt LeBlanc) are both in their true form: Phoebe grifting and being quirky and Joey being trusting and utterly clueless.
Phoebe passes off Moore’s poem as her own by reading it from memory (we hear only the last few lines). While the memorization itself is pretty impressive, it stretches the imagination to think that even naïve Joey wouldn’t recognize the famous poem as the work of someone else.
Of note here is that Phoebe replaces Moore’s “Happy Christmas” with “Merry Christmas,” which is now more common in America, perhaps because Britain’s influence on the English language in America has waned with time.
However you celebrate, whichever holiday movies and films you watch, wherever you are, and whoever you spend it with:
Happy, Happy Holidays from PopPoetry! See you again in the New Year!
Love,
Caitlin