For December · 6 poems & readings

Christmas Poems

Snow, light, and the year's warmest season: poems for cards, classrooms, and reading aloud by the tree.

One poem built half of modern Christmas: 'A Visit from St. Nicholas' (1823) — universally known by its first line, ''Twas the night before Christmas' — invented the sleigh-roof landing, named the reindeer, and established the jolly Santa in 56 galloping lines. Around it stands a quieter tradition: Rossetti's 'In the Bleak Midwinter,' Longfellow's bells on Christmas Day, carols that began life as poems.

The season is poetry's busiest: classroom recitals, card verses, and the read-aloud by the tree that becomes a tradition the second year you do it. For cards, four to eight lines is plenty — a stanza of Rossetti for the reflective list, a couplet of original light verse for the merry one.