As we cranked up the Christmas tunes on our office stereo the other day, several of us began to sing along under our breath, and I found myself wondering just how many kids today actually know the words to all of the old Christmas songs.
When I was a kid, we listened to them incessantly from Thanksgiving straight up until Christmas. We sang them at home, in school, out caroling and at church. It was one of the rites of passage that came with the holiday season, and I loved every cherished note and word of them.
My parents had a book of Currier and Ives prints I loved to look through, and whenever I sang "Jingle Bells," I envisioned those long, lean horses in the pictures, "dashing through the snow" pulling shiny sleighs full of elegant looking women in fur muffs and gentlemen in top hats.... In my childlike imagination, I referred to those scenes as "the olden days," and I believed with all my heart that it was a place all of us could go someday and relive that magical time.
One of my favorites has always been "Silver Bells," about "Christmas time in the city" and shoppers as they "rush home with their treasures...." It reminds me of my childhood years when my mom would take my sister and me into town to go Christmas shopping. For days in advance, we would pore over catalogs and make lists, and because it was a small town and those were times that they were, we were allowed to shop all on our own - in delightful secrecy - and buy our own gifts to wrap up to put under the tree.
And when I was still young enough to believe wholeheartedly in Santa Claus, I loved listening to Gene Autrey's version of "Here Comes Santa Claus" on the radio and imagine reindeer on the roof and Santa sliding down the chimney...
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Sadly, I'm not so sure today's generation puts quite so much stock in Christmas songs, but perhaps that's because the words of the classic old songs no longer have much meaning for them. Think about it - what six-year-old you know understands what it means to go "a-wassailing" or to get "upsot" while "dashing through the snow in a one-horse open sleigh?"
And what self-respecting six-year-old these days would be content to settle for "a hammer and lots of tacks, also a ball and a whip that cracks" in his stocking on Christmas morning?
In fact, if you even hinted that your child ask Santa for "a pair of Hopalong boots and a pistol that shoots," you'd probably be greeted by blank stares tinged with a healthy touch of skepticism.
And when it comes to "decking the halls" or "chestnuts roasting on an open fire," who among today's youth would have any clue of what the heck you're talking about? In fact, the mere thought of getting a "partridge in a pear tree," "two turtle doves," or "three French hens" for Christmas would be simply out of the question.
Sometimes, I actually began to wonder myself about a few of the bits and phrases from the Christmas songs we memorized and recited by heart as kids - even though we weren't always sure just what exactly we were singing about. I went on the computer to look up another old favorite, "Winter Wonderland," and was surprised by what I found. While some versions read, "In the meadow we can build a snowman, and pretend that he's a circus clown. We'll have lots of fun with mister snowman, until the other kids knock him down." Surprisingly, however, some of the other versions read, "We'll have lots of fun with mister snowman, until the alligators knock him down!" (must be the version from the Deep South!).
In any case, the old Christmas songs are still as dear and familiar to me as ever, and I'm not going to waste a single minute of this magical season worrying about just exactly what they mean.
I'll be too busy trying to figure out how to make figgy pudding.
Pine Journal columnist Wendy Johnson can be contacted at: wjohnson@pinejournal.com .
