The Night Before Christmas
by Clement Clarke Moore
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 down 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, Donner 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 hand, 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 peddler 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!”
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Santa is known around
the world as
• Sint Klass in Holland
• Shengdan Laoren in China
• Father Christmas in England
• Pere Noel in France
• Christindl in Germany
• Santa no Ojisan (Uncle Santa) in Japan
• Kerstman in the Netherlands
• Papa Noel in Spain
• Black Peter in Morocco
• Jultomten in Sweden
• Babbo Natale in Italy
Ten Santa Facts
1) No known species of reindeer can fly. But there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not completely rule out flying reindeer which only Santa has ever seen.
2) There are 2 billion children in the world (persons under 18). But since Santa doesn’t (appear) to handle Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, or Buddhist children, that reduces the workload by 85% of the total - leaving 378 million according to the Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that’s 91.8 million homes. One presumes there is at least one good child per house.
3) Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000 th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stocking, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about 0.78 miles per household, a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding, etc. That means that Santa’s sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3000 ti mes the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second - a conventional reindeer can run, at tops 25-30 miles per hour.
4) The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming each child gets nothing more then a medium sized LEGO set (2 lbs), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting the ‘flying reindeer’ can pull TEN TIMES that normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine - we need 214,200 reindeer. This increased the payload - not even counting the weight of the sleigh to 353430 tons. Again for comparison, this is four times the weight of the HMS Queen Elizabeth.
5) 353,000 tons travelling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance. This will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecrafts re-entering the earth’s atmosphere. The lead pair will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy per second, each. In short, they will burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and creating a deafening sonic boom in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa meanwhile, will be subject to centrifugal forces of 17500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250 lb Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by a 4,315,015 pound force.
6) Finland is one of the few countries where kids actually see Father Christmas in the act of delivering the presents and probably the only country where the Saint really does ask the children if they behaved during the year.
7) Santa’s Red Coat, Fur Boots and Long Flowing White Beard were inspired by “Grandfather Frost” from Russian Folklore.
8) Thomas Nast, a well known and respected painter, found inspiration for his extremely popular painting of today’s Santa Claus from Clement C. Moore’s world famous poem, The Night Before Christmas (“A Visit from St.Nicholas”). Thus Thomas Nast, a very real and now historical newspaper artist, was the very first person to paint the first definitive portrait of our present day Santa Claus in 1870.
9) Washington Irving first described Santa’s sleigh flying. The sleigh was said to be pulled by reindeer – giving St. Nick an exotic link with the far north – a land of cold and snow where few, if any, people traveled and was hence mysterious and remote. The reindeer, however, were not first told by Irving. In a publication called The Children’s Friend, a writer had described in 1821 “Old Sante Claus with much delight, His reindeer drives this frosty night”. Washington Irving, in A History of New York, published in 1809, helped create the Americanized version of this mythic figure when he described the saint as “laying a finger beside his nose” and dropping gifts down chimneys.
10) The Scandinavian gift-giving gnome Tomten contributed the archetypal peaked red hat and associations with reindeer. Tomten was a little more volatile than today’s Santa- he could leave gifts or play tricks depending on the quality of the offerings for him.
Santa Giggles
How many chimneys does Santa Claus go down?
Stacks!
Why does Santa Claus go down the chimney?
Beacuse in soots him!
What is invisible and smells like milk and cookes?
Santa’s burps?
What does Santa clean his sleigh with?
Comet!
What did Mrs. Claus say to Santa when she looked up at the sky?
Looks like rain, dear.
What does Santa declare to all the toys in his workshop on Christmas Eve?
Okay, sack time!
Why does Santa like to work in his garden?
Because he likes to hoe, hoe, hoe!
What smells most in a chimney?
Santa’s nose!
Where does Santa stay when he’s on holidays?
At a Ho-ho-tel!
What does Mrs. Claus sing to Santa on his birthday?
Freeze a jolly good fellow!
What do you get if you cross Father Christmas with a duck?
A Christmas Quacker!
An honest politician, a kind lawyer and Santa Claus were walking down the street and saw a $20 bill. Which one picked it up??
Santa! The other two don’t exist!
What do the elves call it when Père Noël claps his hands at the end of a play?
Santapplause!
What do you call Santa when he has no money?
Saint “Nickel”-less!
What does Santa like to have for breakfast?
Mistle-”toast”!
What does Santa use when he goes fishing?
His north pole!
How do we know Santa is such a good race car driver?
Because he’s always in the pole position!
What’s red and green and flies?
An airsick Santa Claus!
Why does Santa’s sleigh get such good mileage?
Because it has long-distance runners on each side!
What goes Ho, Ho, Swoosh! Ho, Ho, Swoosh?
Santa caught in a revolving door!
What kind of motorcycle does Santa ride?
A “Holly” Davidson!
What’s red and white and falls down the chimney?
Santa Klutz!
What nationality is Santa Claus?
North Polish!
Why does Santa owe everything to the elves?
Because he is an elf-made man!
What goes oh, oh, oh?
Santa Claus walking backwards!
What does Santa get if he gets stuck in a chimney?
Claustrophobic!
Who delivers Christmas presents to pets?
Why, Santa Paws of course! |
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