Twas The Night Before Christmas

It is 45 minutes before Christmas!! YAY! I meant to post this earlier in the day, but mom and son are here and it just didn't happen. This poem was in a Mad Magazine when I was a teenager and at one point I had it memorized. I am almost 60 now so I can't remember every verse (I still remember most of it though), it is still think it one of my favorite poems ever, even though it has not yet come to fruition, so hat's off to Al Jaffee and Mad Magazine years after they stopped production:

"Twas the night before Christmas, 
And all through the gloom 
Not a creature was stirring; 
There just wasn't room; 
The stockings were hanging 
In numbers so great, 
We feared that the walls 
Would collapse from the weight! 

The children like cattle 
Were packed off to bed; 
We took a quick count; 
There were three-hundred head; 
Not to mention the grown-ups-- 
Those hundreds of dozens 
Of uncles and inlaws 
And twice-removed cousins! 

When outside the house 
There arose such a din! 
I wanted to look 
But the mob held me in; 
With pushing and shoving 
And cursing out loud, 
In forty-five minutes 
I squeezed through the crowd! 

Outside on the lawn 
I could see a fresh snow 
Had covered the people 
Asleep down below; 
And up in the sky 
What should strangely appear 
But an overweight sleigh 
Pulled by countless reindeer! 

They pulled and they tugged 
And they wheezed as they came, 
And the red-suited driver 
Called each one by name: 
"Now, Dasher! Now, Dancer! 
Now, Prancer and Vixen! 
On, comet! On, Cupid! 
On Donder and Blitzen!" 

"Now, Melvin! Now, Marvin! 
Now, Albert and Jasper! 
On, Sidney! On, Seymour! 
On Harvey and Casper! 
Now, Clifford! Now, Max"-- 
But he stopped, far from through; 
Our welcoming house-top 
Was coming in view! 

Direct to our house-top 
The reindeer then sped 
With the sleigh full of toys 
And St. Nick at the head; 
And then like an earthquake 
I heard on the roof 
The clomping and pounding 
Of each noisy hoof! 

Before I could holler 
A warning of doom, 
The whole aggregation 
Fell into the room; 
And under a mountain 
Of plaster and brick 
Mingled inlaws and reindeer 
And me and St. Nick; 

He panted and sighed 
Like a man who was weary; 
His shoulders were stooped 
And his outlook was dreary: 
"I'm way behind schedule," 
He said with a sigh, 
"And I've been on the road 
Since the first of July!" 

'Twas then that I noticed 
The great, monstrous sack, 
Which he barely could hold 
On his poor, creaking back; 
"Confound it!" he moaned, 
"Though my bag's full of toys, 
I'm engulfed by the birthrate 
Of new girls and boys!" 

Then, filling the stockings, 
He shook his sad face, 
"This job is a killer! 
I can't take the pace! 
This cluttered old world 
Is beyond my control! 
There are even millions 
Up at the North Pole!" 

"Now I'm late!" he exclaimed, "And I really must hurry! 
By now I should be over Joplin, Missouri!" 
But he managed to sigh as he drove out of sight, 
"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!"

Happy Christmas Everyone! I hope your Christmas is absolutely wonderful!