'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 a result, "New Yorkers embraced Moore's child-centered version of Christmas as if they had been doing it all their lives." In "An American Anthology, 1787–1900", editor Edmund Clarence Stedman reprinted the Moore version of the poem, including the German spelling of "Donder and Blitzen" that he adopted, rather than the earlier Dutch version from 1823 "Dunder and Blixem." Both phrases translate as "Thunder and Lightning" in English, though the German word for thunder is "Donner" and the words in modern Dutch would be "Donder en Bliksem." Modern printings frequently incorporate alterations that reflect changing linguistic and cultural sensibilities. For example,