What I wanted to show you as the header image.***

One of my favorite topical overlaps for this newsletter happens when I can share a story of archives and poetry, and for that, Christmas came exactly on time.

Washington Irving—who introduced the world to the Halloween hauntings of Sleepy Hollow—published his satire of early Dutch-American / New York history on December 6, 1809, the feast day of Saint Nicholas. The patron saint appeared several times in the book with descriptive, if not altogether factual, details: stockings hung for gifts ... travel via chimney ... a flying wagon filled with toys.

Irving wrote that the sign of the saint was "laying his finger beside his nose and winking hard with one eye."

Those characteristics were woven together and delivered in a more memorable format on December 23, 1823, when an anonymous poem appeared on page three of The Troy Sentinel (NY). You can read the original publication of "Account of a Visit From St. Nicholas" thanks to the state newspaper archives.

The poem was eventually attributed to Clement Moore, a fellow New Yorker, in an 1837 poetry collection. His text has been reprinted and remixed enough times to match its longevity. The Library of Congress alone has 300 different editions.

Cheers to the power of poetry and the year-round gift of archival materials. And thank you to Ron Charles and Book Club, a newsletter I read every week (and highly recommend), for the initial reporting in a review of a new book about the centuries of art inspired by the legendary poem.

Wishing you many cards in your mailbox and "a touch of myrrh" on the last night of December.

***Footnote: TinyLetter, this platform that handles the tech side of delivering my monthly newsletters to y'all, is shutting down. The dismantling has begun: I couldn't upload any images. I'm on the lookout for a replacement. :)
 

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This newsletter was written on the traditional lands of the Piscataway and Nacotchtank.