My father headed the Episcopal Diocese of New York and the churchy set were not keen on Christmas being anything other than about Jesus and Saint Nicholas so anything popularising the festive season which didn't include a baby in a manger or a Saint clambering up on roofs to throw money into prostitutes socks was frowned upon so when my poem became popular i denied writing it, they said was it you and i said no, no, I don't do it. No, really I didn't. Listen, I've told you I don't do it. Will you please leave me alone, I didn't write it! and when they pointed out it had my name on the bottom i said Oh... Ok then, i did.
I wrote the poem for my children but a friend sent it to a newspaper and the Saint Nicholas Society picked it up and used it in their cause to to make Christmas which was more of a feeding frenzy and drunken orgy more child friendly and put together my reindeer with their Sinterklaas and a legend was born.
My idea of Santa's sleigh being pulled by a reindeer is based on another poem, 'Old Santeclaus with Much Delight' but i gave him eight and named them Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Dunder and Blixem although over time the last two became Donner and Blitzen and i hear there has been another one added since, Rudolph with a nasal deformity but i had nothing to do with that.
I also refer to Saint Nicholas all the way through, never Santa or Father Christmas, and even call him a jolly old elf at one point but as a professor of classics, up until that point my most notable work was a two-volume tome entitled 'A Compendious Lexicon of the Hebrew Language' and nobody remembers that but they remember the poem i dashed off in half hour in an effort to shut the kids up one night. Go figure.
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