“Deck the Halls” originated from the 16th century Welsh New Year’s Eve dancing song, “Nos Galan.” Cardiff University Professor in the School of Welsh, E. Wyn James, an authority on Welsh hymns and ballads, said “Nos Galan” belongs to a class of competition songs. According to James, neighbors would gather around a fire, have a few drinks and take turns composing four-line verses to a particular song. The competitor would sing a line of verse and then a harp or other instrument would play the refrain. In lieu of an instrument, the whole group would chime in with the appropriate metric number of “fa, la, las.” No doubt the competitive element accounts for the many and varied translations of “Nos Galan.”
The wording attributed to John Ceiriog Huges reads: “Soon the hoar old year will leave us, / But the parting must not grieve us, / When the New Year comes tomorrow, / Let him find no trace of sorrow.” [Subsequent verses can be found online under “The Hymns And Carols of Christmas”]
The “Deck the Halls version we are most familiar with comes from lyricist Thomas Oliphant in 1862. Though Oliphant composed no music of his own, he was quite popular in his day for translating or creating the lyrics for songs. His focus was more on fitting words to the spirit of the music rather than on close translation. Deck the Halls is a prime example. The version Oliphant based his rendition on reads literally: “The best pleasure on New Year’s Eve, / Is house and fire and a pleasant family, / A pure heart and brown ale, / A gentle song and the voice of the harp.”
Oliphant’s version itself was later sanitized to exclude all drinking references. The line that now reads “Don we now our gay apparel” once read “Fill the mead cup, drain the barrel.” “See the blazing yule before us,” was once “See the flowing bowl before us.” Where Oliphant wrote, “While I sing of beauty’s treasure;” the wording is now “Yuletide treasure.” And instead of “Laughing, quaffing all together,” the modern version has, “Sing we joyous all together.”
“Jingle Bells” was originally written as a Thanksgiving Song for a Sunday school production. As the story goes, it was so popularly received, the people asked to have the children sing it again at Christmas.
Several stories circulate about how the popular Christmas song came about. Both Medford, Mass. and Savannah, Ga. claim to be its birthplace – and have posted plaques to prove it. What is certain is that the song was written in the 1850s by James Lord Pierpont under the title “One Horse Open Sleigh.” Also undisputed is that Pierpont was inspired by one horse sleigh races that were a familiar event in Medford, Mass. and perhaps also by cozy rides in a two-seater sleigh, as suggested by the second verse which mentions “Miss Fannie Bright.”
The jingly bells on a sleigh horse’s harness were a matter of practicality rather than decoration or romantic ambience. In some areas, their presence was even dictated by law. The sound of horses’ hooves, which generally signaled the approach of another sleigh, was muted on snow, and safety dictated another sound – such as bells – be used during the winter.
Bobbing, or docking, a horse’s tail was also fairly common practice. Essentially it consisted of cutting all the hairs below the coccyx bone. It was done, especially for racing, to prevent the tail hairs from getting caught in the reins and causing the driver to lose control of the horse.
“Jingle Bells” also has the distinction of being the first song recorded from space. In 1965 the crew of Gemini 6 smuggled five miniature bells and a tiny harmonica on board. On Dec. 16, they reported a UFO sighting: “a command module and eight smaller modules in front. The pilot of the command module is wearing a red suit.” Following a purported attempt to pick up a signal being emitted by the UFO, Thomas Stafford on bells and Wally Schirra on harmonica played “Jingle Bells.”
“All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth” has a much more straight-forward origin. In 1944, Donald Yetter Gardner, a music teacher in the Smithtown, N.Y., public schools, asked a class of second graders what they wanted for Christmas. Inspired less by the children’s words than by the lisping answers he received because almost all of the children had at least one front tooth missing, Gardner wrote the now-popular song in 30 minutes. In an interview years later, Gardner said, “I was amazed at the way that silly little song was picked up by the whole country.”
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