In addition to my first music box from the Black Forest, which played Brahms’s Wiegenlied, and that first inspired me to memorize music and lyrics, the lyrics of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas by Clement Clarke Moore (1779-1863), a late Greek, Oriental, Biblical, and Divinity Professor, I began to recite to background music in response to my dramatist Mom J. Ready from whom I learned this long before I was five; these lyrics are so old that it is public domain. Of course, this video is new and original:


'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 Saint Nicholas soon would be there.


The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugarplums danced in their heads.
And Mama 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 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 luster of midday 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 Saint 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 Donder 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 housetop the coursers they flew,
With a sleigh full of toys and Saint Nicholas too.

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