"The Night Before Christmas" was a poem anonymously published in 1823 and later claimed by Clement Clarke Moore in 1837. This Christmas poem is ascribed to be largely responsible for the Santa Clause conceptions and the belief of this 'imaginary' person. The poem was originally known as "A Visit From St. Nicholas".
The poem consisting of 56 lines in one long stanza has a rhyming scheme of a normal aabbccdd......... . The meter of the poem follows the anapestic tetrameter, where the lines consist of two unstressed followed by a stressed syllable.
The poem talks of a night before Christmas when a father of one family saw St. Nicholas descend through the chimney and fill the decorative stockings with gifts for the whole family. Wishing the family with <em>"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”</em>, he left the amused father. This began the concept of a Christmas Santa Claus visiting before the day of Christmas and giving gifts to the children.
A "Community groups that use library spaces for meetings, presentations, fundraisers, and outreach programs would also be affected by library budget cuts."
