The Spirit of Christmas (TV program) The Spirit of Christmas (TV program) The Spirit of Christmas is a Christmas television special performed by marionettes. It first aired in 1953 in the United States. Its half-hour showing time is divided into two marrionette segments, one dramatizing "A Visit from St. Nicholas" and one telling the story of the Nativity. The live-action part of the film features Alexander Scourby, who narrates and also plays Clement Moore in the "Visit from St. Nicholas" segment. The jacket of the DVD version calls it "The Philadelphia Holiday Classic," which refers to the region of the United States where it was originally
Clement Moore Butler was thereafter chaplain to the United States minister at Rome, Italy, and the second rector of Grace Church (now St. Paul’s Within the Walls) in Rome (1861–1864). When Butler returned to the United States in 1864, he became professor of ecclesiastical history at the Divinity School of the Protestant Episcopal Church, Philadelphia, until 1884 when he retired due to ill health. Butler died on March 5, 1890, in Germantown, Pennsylvania. In 1836 Butler married Frances Livingston Hart (1816–1895) in Washington, DC. They had three children: Frances Livingston Butler, Helen Moore Butler and Clement Moore Butler. Frances was a niece of