Members of the Rotary Club of Salem Creekside celebrated this yuletide holiday, Friday, December 16th, at Danny's on the Green, Creekside Golf Course, with family, friends, and special guests District Governor Steve Williams and his wife Janet. Danny's on the Green outdid themselves with an array of appetizers, outstanding main courses: prime rib and salmon, along with all scrumptious sides and desserts. 
The evening program was a celebration of this yuletide season, along with three very specials birthdays: Ginger Page, Rich Davis and Bob Thomas.
Maria Mokrai retold the tale of a very special celebration Christmas Eve, in New York City, not like any other. A company of men, women and children gather together, just after the evening service in their church, and, standing around the tomb of the author of “A Visit from St. Nicholas (Twas the Night Before Christmas),” recite together the words of the poem which we all know so well and love so dearly.
This was followed by Creekside's version, "Twas the Month Before Christmas" and wonderful stories and memories of Creekside Rotarians: Ginger Page, Rich Davis and Bob Thomas by family and club members. A truly special time to rejoice and give thanks for a great year of "Service Above Self" as we wish a very Merry Christmas to all, and to all a Good Night. 
Dr. Clement C Moore, who wrote the poem, never expected that he would be remembered by it. If he expected to be famous at all as a writer, he thought it would be because of the Hebrew Dictionary that he wrote.
Born in a house near Chelsea Square, New York City, in 1781; and lived there all his life. It was a great big house, with fireplace in it; --just the house to be living in on Christmas Eve. Dr. Moore had children and liked writing poetry for them even more than he liked writing a Hebrew Dictionary. He wrote a whole book of poem for them.
One year he wrote this poem, which we usually call “Twas the Night before Christmas,” to give to his children for a Christmas present. They read it just after they had hung up their stockings before one of the big fireplaces in their house. Afterward, they learned it and sometimes recited it, just as other children learn it and recite it now.
It was printed in a newspaper. Then a magazine printed it, and after a time it was printed in the school readers. Later it was printed by itself, with pictures. Then it was translated into German, French, and many other languages. It was even make into “Braille’. It has happened that almost all the children in the world know this poem. While few of them know any Hebrew! hag mold shamak חג מולד שמח
Every Christmas Eve the young men studying to be ministers at the General Theological Seminary, New York City, put a holly wreath around Dr. Moore’s picture, which is on the wall of their dining room. Why? Because he gave the ground on which the General Theological Seminary stands: Because he wrote a Hebrew Dictionary? No They do it because he was the author of “A Visit from St. Nicholas.