Christmas America. In America, interest in Christmas had been revived in the 1820s by several short stories by Washington Irving which appear in his "The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent." and "Old Christmas". Irving's stories depicted harmonious warm-hearted English Christmas festivities he experienced while staying in Aston Hall, Birmingham, England, that had largely been abandoned, and he used the tract "Vindication of Christmas" (1652) of Old English Christmas traditions, that he had transcribed into his journal as a format for his stories. In 1822, Clement Clarke Moore wrote the poem "A Visit From St. Nicholas" (popularly known by its first
Saint Nicholas Lycia" on the tenth line of a list of attendees at the Council of Nicaea recorded by the historian Theodoret in the "Historiae Ecclesiasticae Tripartitae Epitome", written sometime between 510 and 515. A single, offhand mention of Nicholas of Myra also occurs in the biography of another saint, Saint Nicholas of Sion, who apparently took the name "Nicholas" to honor him. "The Life of Saint Nicholas of Sion", written around 250 years after Nicholas of Myra's death, briefly mentions Nicholas of Sion visiting Nicholas's tomb to pay homage to him. According to Jeremy Seal, the fact that Nicholas had a