He couldn't have been more happy, or more excited, for his assistants had given him a fluffy stocking to hang up, in the hope that Father Christmas might visit while he slept, and his magic pumpkin, which was beginning to look quite shrivelled, had turned into a beautiful pumpkin candle once more.
Algy settled down on the soft needles of a Christmas tree with his stocking hanging by his side, and did his best to go to sleep, but he found it awfully difficult… He was just too excited! So he tried reciting that most famous of all Christmas poems, written 200 years ago. He hoped that if he recited it very carefully and very slowly it might help to make him drowsy, for he knew that Santa Claus never visited folk who were wide awake:
'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse:
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And mamma in her kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap,
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below,
When, what to my wondering eyes did appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer,
With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name:
“Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! Now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! To the top of the wall!
Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!”
As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too.
[Algy is of course reciting the opening verses of the early 19th century poem A Visit from St. Nicholas, which is more often called The Night Before Christmas. The poem was first published anonymously in 1823 and its author is uncertain.]