Writing Credits

“’Twas the Night Before Christmas” was directed by Gary Yates. The script is by C. Jay Cox (“Sweet Home Alabama,” “Latter Days”) and Gary Yates, based upon the play entitled “The Trial Before Christmas,” written by Duncan Crary and Jack Casey.

Advance Praise - "Strangely Brilliant"

In her Nov. 25, 2022 holiday movie guide, NPR’s pop culture correspondent Linda Holmes praised “’Twas the Night Before Christmas,” noting “Even the very traditional Hallmark sometimes hits upon a concept that is strangely brilliant.”

Crary and Casey first staged their mock trial to determine the true poet on Dec. 18, 2013 in the Rensselaer County Courthouse in downtown Troy. Casey and his daughter Molly Casey, both practicing attorneys, represented the Livingstons suing Moore for committing "literary piracy." Troy attorney E. Stewart Jones defended Moore. A jury selected from the packed courtroom was unable to reach a verdict in '13, so the case was retried the following year during Troy’s Victorian Stroll. Both courtroom spectacles made news around the world.

Crary and Casey plan to watch the Hallmark movie together for the first time when it premieres Saturday, Dec. 17.

“I love that Hallmark leaned into the quirky charisma of our original production,” said Crary, a publicist known for promoting Troy to the world. “This will add a lot of excitement for our city's connection to this beloved poem as it turns 200 years-old next Christmas.”

In addition to being the “Hometown of Uncle Sam,” Crary says he’d like to see Troy promote itself as the "birthplace of Santa" since it was this poem that first described a distinctly American holiday figure, who would later be known as Santa Claus, as jolly and plump and who flies through the air in a sleigh pulled by reindeer, each individually named, to enter houses through the chimney and place gifts in stockings on the eve of Dec. 25. This depiction of Santa was markedly different in behavior, demeanor and, arguably, purpose from earlier predecessors. These magic verses printed in The Sentinel made Santa come to life, and, like an early meme, passed from one imagination to another, round the earth, he noted.

"Two centuries ago Troy gave this Christmas gift to the world," said Troy native Casey, an attorney and novelist. "I remember the magic in my children's eyes as I read it each Christmas Eve, and they imagined a sleigh pulled by reindeer and Santa leaving them toys. If not for a humble Troy newspaper editor, this masterpiece might be collecting dust in some forgotten archive."