In the Danish tradition, this is Lille Juleaften (Little Christmas Eve). In a way, for us, it's "The Night Before Christmas" since so much of our celebration takes place on Christmas Eve -- church, dinner, dancing around the tree and tree presents. On Christmas Day, we have stockings and later celebrate Sisterfilms' birthday.
So, the "story" for tonight is a poem, Clement Clarke Moore's A Visit from St. Nicholas. There is a base canard that says Moore didn't write it; go here for a history of the poem and a rebuttal. There are more editions of this poem than I can count, and we have several; I chose a picture of the Grandma Moses edition we've had since SonShineIn was a little boy. I'm sure you have at least one somewhere around the house, or maybe you know it by heart, as I think I still do.
As with many poems, this one has been set to music quite a few times. I chose the Peter,Paul and Mary version from their CD A Holiday Celebration. But one of the most famous musical versions is by Fred Waring and His Pennsylvanians and you can listen to it here.
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