'Twas the Night Before Christmas (1977 TV special) '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 first aired December 7, 1977 on ABC. Directed by Tim Kiley, it stars Paul Lynde, Anne Meara, Martha Raye, and Alice Ghostley. The story is set on Christmas Eve in a New England town in the late 1890s. The Cosgrove family's home is in an uproar over the holidays. The patriarch, Clark Cosgrove (Paul Lynde) is frazzled by the gift demands of his loud children. His
Saint Nicholas tomb that could be visited serves as the almost solitary definitive proof that he was a real historical figure. In his treatise "De statu animarum post mortem" (written 583), the theologian Eustratius of Constantinople cites Saint Nicholas of Myra's miracle of the three counts as evidence that souls may work independent from the body. Eustratius credits a lost "Life of Saint Nicholas" as his source. Nearly all the sources Eustratius references date from the late fourth century to early fifth century, indicating the "Life of Saint Nicholas" to which he refers was probably written during this time period, shortly after