THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS

By Clement C Moore
Illustration Corrinne Malvern
A Golden Book ©1949

THE STRANGE (TO ME) BOOK THAT I HAD AS A CHILD

 

When I was in my early grade school years, my grandparents gave me this book. As I read the book, I was confused by the illustrations that accompanied the texts. There were things in the pictures that looked strange and there were items that I had no idea what they were. I knew the poem already, but the whole book was quite unfamiliar.

The cover of the book I originally had is shown at right. I don't know what happened to that book, as my brothers had all of the children's books after I did, and we had moved twice. But I found a copy of the book with a green cover at WalMart in 2022. The old mysteries returned to mind. So I decided to look into what is in the book.

My preliminary investigations showed me a few facts:

1. The poem was first published in New York.
2. The setting of the illustrations is in England, not the United States.
3. Apparently the people in the illustrations did not have electrical power.
4. When I was young and had the book, I had never been in any home that did not have electricity.
5. There are no powered vehicles in the illustrations, so they are probably set before 1900.
6. The Holmes Stereoscope places the illustration setting well after its invention date of 1861.
7. The drawings seem to be of Victorian England.

THE ITEMS I FOUND STRANGE

• I thought the set of blinkers on the face of the horse on the front cover was a whistle of some kind.
• I had never seen fireplaces as large as the ones shown. The largest I knew a fireplace to be was about 2 feet high and 3 feet wide.

   Question: If the fireplace was in use for heating the house, how could Santa Claus enter and exit through the fireplace?

• This book made me believe for years that the fronts of the runners of a sleigh were always attached to the front of the body of the sleigh.
   - I found out it wasn't always true when I rode in a sleigh with runners that just turn up at the front.
• Their clothing was strange to me.
• I had never seen shoes like the ones the mother and children wore.
• I had never seen anything that looked like this object while I had the book (right).
  

  It appears two times in the book:

  1. The father is holding it up over the children as they are tucked into bed.
  2. It is sitting on a nightstand next to the parents' bed.

  I had no idea what it was. I assumed it was some kind of ornament.

  I asked my parents and they said it was a lamp.

  I never heard of carrying a lamp from room to room. But all of our lamps had cords plugged into outlets.

  I now know it is an oil lamp.
   - The bottom glass ball is the tank of lamp oil.
   - The top glass ball covers the lamp chimney and is the lampshade.
   - The lamp chimney protrudes from the top.
   - The flame adjustment knob is on the neck between the balls.
   - Lighting the lamp requires removing the top ball and the chimney or using a long match.
   - This family probably had only one lamp. They moved it from place to place to have light.

  When I had the book, the only kind of lamp remotely like this that I had seen was a kerosene lantern in a TV western.

  The strange shapes of some older electric lamps come from trying to imitate oil lamps (e.g. right).
   - Notice the lamp chimneys and the fake oil tank in the middle.

• I had never seen a jumping jack, but I figured it was some kind of moving human figure toy.
• I had never seen nesting eggs, but it was obvious that something was hatching.
• I had never seen a top like that with a string to spin it. All of the tops I had or had seen had stems on top to spin them.
• I had never seen loops of material on the sides of Santa's boots to pull them up.
• I have never seen anything like this thing until recently.
  

  At first, I thought it was a huge wrapped candy. But it was much too large. It sticks out of Santa's hand on both sides.

  The fringes on both ends seem to be tassels. I was thinking it might be a muff. But the narrow parts are too narrow.

  Research has shown that the object is a Christmas cracker.
  It works like the pull trap fireworks. It goes "BANG" when you pull the ends, and then the contents fall out.
  Usually they contain candies, party favors, and paper crowns.

  This is an old style with tassels for handles. The new kind has cylinders for handles.

• I did know what a Holmes stereoscope is. My parents have a Stereopticon brand stereoscope and hundreds of image cards.

   - I bought cards for it when we went on vacations in the 1950s and '60s.
   - In the 1980s, I created 3D images for it on a computer.

It's a good book - just somewhat confusing to today's children.