"Twas the night before Christmas in the firehouse, not an alarm bell ringing, not one fire to douse…"
Thus begins "A Firehouse's Night Before Christmas," a modern-day, safety-oriented retelling of Clement Clarke Moore's "A Visit from St. Nicholas," by Northborough and Maynard firefighter Michael Parr.
"It started while sitting around the firehouse around the holidays and I started thinking about 'Twas the Night Before Christmas,'" said Parr, 39, who lives in Northborough. "It was just kind of a fun-hearted, jokey thing, but I kept playing with it. I tried to adapt it as closely to the original poem as I could." Parr grew up surrounded by firefighters — his father, David Parr, was Wakefield's fire chief and his uncle was also a firefighter. Michael Parr started as a call firefighter in Wakefield before joining the Maynard Fire Department almost 10 years ago.