A Visit from St. Nicholas history of Christmas gift-giving. Before the poem gained wide popularity, American ideas had varied considerably about Saint Nicholas and other Christmastide visitors. "A Visit from St. Nicholas" eventually was set to music and has been recorded by many artists. On Christmas Eve night, while his wife and children sleep, a father awakens to noises outside his house. Looking out the window, he sees Santa Claus (Saint Nicholas) in an air-borne sleigh pulled by eight reindeer. After landing his sleigh on the roof, the saint enters the house through the chimney, carrying a sack of toys with him. The father watches
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