'Twas the Night Before Christmas (1977 TV special) it later received an Award of Excellence from the Film Advisory Board. "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" was never rebroadcast by ABC or any other U.S. television network. To date, it has not been made commercially available on DVD and, except for a one-time screening at a New York City retro film and television festival in 2001, it has not been seen since its only telecast. 'Twas the Night Before Christmas (1977 TV special) Twas the Night Before Christmas is a Christmas television special loosely inspired by the 1823 poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas" by Clement Clarke Moore. It
A Visit from St. Nicholas expert James Lowe and Dr. Joe Nickell, author of "Pen, Ink and Evidence." On January 20, 1829, Troy editor Orville L. Holley alluded to the author of the Christmas poem, using terms that accurately described Moore as a native and current resident of New York City, and as "a gentleman of "more" merit as a scholar and a writer than many of more noisy pretensions." In December 1833, a diary entry by Francis P. Lee, a student at General Theological Seminary when Moore taught there, referred to a holiday figure of St. Nicholas as being "robed in fur, and dressed