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| Although Early American Life usually does not publish fiction (at least intentionally), we do relax around Christmas time, and you're apt to enjoy all sorts of deviations from our regular fare. For Christmas 2004 we indulged the muse of fiction and included the original reminesence about a Christmas in earlier times, which we called "Grandma’s Hearth."
Many of our mental images of Christmas can be traced back to an even earlier time, a time long before our magazine was published. The first appearance of the modern Santa Claus appeared in the December 23, 1823 edition of the Troy Senteniel, an anonymous poem titled "A Visit from St. Nicholas." Today known from its first line as "The Night Before Christmas," it presents the a Dutch-German view of the holiday that has become our American tradition. For your enjoyment, we include the original poem here.
t Grandma’s Hearth
t A Visit from St. Nicholas
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