According to legend, A Visit from St. Nicholas was composed by Clement Clarke Moore on a snowy winter's day during a shopping trip on a sleigh.

   His inspiration for the character of Saint Nicholas was a local Dutch handyman as well as the historical Saint Nicholas. While Moore originated many of the features that are still associated with Santa Claus today, he borrowed other aspects such as the use of reindeer.

   The poem was first published anonymously in the Troy, New York, Sentinel on December 23, 1823, having been sent there by a friend of Moore, and was reprinted frequently thereafter with no name attached. It was first attributed in print to Moore in 1837.

   Moore himself acknowledged authorship when he included it in his own book of poems in 1844. By then, the original publisher and at least seven others had already acknowledged his authorship.

   Moore had a reputation as an erudite professor and had not wished at first to be connected with the unscholarly verse. He included it in the anthology at the insistence of his children, for whom he had originally written the piece.

   Moore's conception of St. Nicholas was borrowed from his friend Washington Irving's, but Moore portrayed his "jolly old elf" as arriving on Christmas Eve rather than Christmas Day.

   At the time Moore wrote the poem, Christmas Day was overtaking New Year's Day as the preferred genteel family holiday of the season, but some Protestants - who saw Christmas as the result of "Catholic ignorance and deception"- still had reservations.

   By having St. Nicholas arrive the night before, Moore "deftly shifted the focus away from Christmas Day with its still-problematic religious associations." As a result, "New Yorkers embraced Moore's child-centered version of Christmas as if they had been doing it all their lives."