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‘Twas the Night Before Christmas’ Free Event

POSTED BY
Evelyn Kanter

a visit frm st nicholasAttend a FREE concert of Christmas music followed by a reading of the classic poem ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas” by Clement Clarke Moore.

After the family-friendly concert and reading, everybody follows folk dressed in Victorian costume for a lantern procession two blocks to Moore’s grave for a wreath-laying ceremony, and then back to the Church of the Intercession, 155th St. and Broadway, for cookies and donuts, hot chocolate for the kids and wine for the grown-ups.

‘Twas the Night Before Christmas Reading is a lovely event, with choral performances by local school children and professional opera singers, and the reading is by NYC celebrities.

Moore’s tomb is at Trinity Church Cemetery & Mausoleum, 155th St. and Riverside Drive. It’s the “uptown” branch of the better-known Trinity Church and cemetery in the financial district, blocks from the 9/11 Memorial, where Alexander Hamilton and his family are buried, along with other famous Revolutionary Era patriots.

The concert begins at 3pm, Sunday, December 16th, and the visit to the gravesite follows at around 4:30pm.  Take the kids, and your imagination.

The #1 train stops practically at the front door of the church.

SEE ALSO

The story behind the Christmas carol Silent Night, Holy Night,

which is 200 years old in 2018

free holiday events in nycClement Clarke Moore is just one of the famous folk buried here. 

Famous people buried in Trinity Church Cemetery & Mausoleum

There’s another Christmas story here. 

In 1912, when Alfred Tennyson Dickens, son of Charles Dickens and godson of the poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson, was on a lecture tour in the United States, honoring the centenary of his father’s birth, he suddenly died of a heart attack while staying at the Hotel Astor in Manhattan. With the consent of his family, he was buried in Trinity Cemetery. Charles Dickens, of course, wrote A Christmas Carol, another iconic story of hope and redemption.

John Jacob Astor and John Jacob Astor III are buried here, the ancestors of John Jacob Astor IV, the real estate tycoon and wealthiest man in America at the time, one of 1,514 souls who perished aboard  the Titanic in 1914. 

There is a memorial to Astor IV, who built the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, named after the family’s hometown, Waldorf, Germany.

famous people buried in nyc

Northern Harrier photo courtesy Audubon NY

Also buried here is John James Audubon, world-famous painter of bird species. The Audubon Society is named for him. 

New York City is part of the Atlantic Flyover, and hundreds of bird species fly through NYC north or south on their annual seasonal migrations.  Among many other conservation efforts, Audubon New York does an annual bird count each season in Central Park.

Jerry Orbach photo courtesy NYPost

Award-winning actor Jerry Orbach also is buried here.  He was in the original cast of the Broadway play The Fantastiks, and introduced us all to the song Try to Remember.

But Orbach is more famous for his roles as the father in the iconic film Dirty Dancing, and as Detective Lennie Briscoe in the long-running TV show Law and Order. 

The folk in Victorian costumes, with lanterns, will help you find their gravesites.  So this is a history lesson as well as a holiday event.

Find out more details about this historic cemetery on the Audubon Park Historic District website.

More about ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas

Clement Clarke Moore was a pastor, a professor of theology and a Greek and Latin scholar.  A NYC native, together with his relatives and ancestors, he was instrumental in the development of the New York City’s Chelsea section in the late 1700s and early 1800s.

But Clement Clarke Moore is far more famous for writing the beloved “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” which he wrote for the amusement of his six children.

He was persuaded to publish the poem in 1823, and it has remained popular ever since.

In case you have forgotten all the words, here they are, courtesy of Poets.org.

‘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 our brains for a long winter’s nap,
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my 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 a lustre of midday to objects below,
When what to my wondering eyes did appear,
But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny rein-deer,
With a little old driver so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment he 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 leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;
So up to the housetop 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 head, 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 on 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 bowl full 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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