Many fathers dress up in red suits and white beards around Christmastime and bring joy and laughter to their children. But what happens when the children creep down from their bedroom late at night and catch “Santa” off guard? The song “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” was written by Tommie Connor in 1952, with 13 year-old Jimmy Boyd singing for the recording. The song reached #1 in the Billboard Charts in December of the same year.
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Lyrics
I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus
Underneath the mistletoe last night.
She didn’t see me creep
Down the stairs to have a peek;
She thought I was tucked
Up in my bedroom fast asleep.
Then, I saw Mommy tickle Santa Claus
Underneath his beard so snowy white.
Oh, what a laugh it would have been,
If Daddy had only seen
Mommy kissing Santa Claus last night!
“In the Bleak Midwinter” is based on a poem by Christina Rossetti, written around 1872. The evocative lyrics paint a picture of the Nativity in a snowy Northern landscape. The text of this Christmas poem has been set to music many times, the most famous settings being composed by Gustav Holst and Harold Edwin Darke in the early 20th century. The carol is beloved by millions, and in 2008, Darke’s version of the song was 
Felix Mendelssohn composed the tune to this song in 1840, but the original tune was a solemn one written by Charles Wesley at the inception of the carol one hundred years earlier in 1739. The lyrics have changed as well. The original lyrics by Wesley read “Hark, how all the welkin [heaven] rings,” but his colleague George Whitefield changed this line to the one we know today. Mendelssohn’s song was originally part of a cantata commemorating printer Johann Gutenberg. The music familiar to us was applied to the lyrics 15 years after Mendelssohn’s composition by W.H. Cummings, an English musician.
“Walking in the Air” is the only vocalization of the wordless 1982 animated film 
“God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” is an old carol sung by the waits, the municipal watchmen of old England. The waits were licensed to perform the duty of singing seasonal songs to the gentry, or the upper-class citizens. The author of the carol is unknown. The song was first published in 1827 as an “ancient version, sung in the streets of London.” However, in the earliest known publication of the carol on a circa 1760 broadsheet, it is described as a “new Christmas carol,” suggesting its origin to actually be mid-18th century, though some other accounts place the lyrics as far back as the 15th century. Charles Dickens used it in A Christmas Carol; when Scrooge hears the song, he threatens to hit the singer with a ruler if he doesn’t cease immediately.
Johnny Marks created an undeniable hit with “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” when Gene Autry debuted it in New York City’s Madison Square Garden in 1949. The star of one of the best-selling and most-recorded Christmas songs of all time, Rudolph has found its way into the hearts and delight of children and adults all over the world, and inspired several television specials, numerous toys, clothing, and other merchandise bearing the famous reindeer and his glowing red nose.
Pachelbel’s Canon,” also known as “Canon in D Major” is by Johann Pachelbel, a German composer from the Baroque era. Like most other works by Pachelbel and other pre-1700 composers, the Canon remained forgotten for centuries and was rediscovered only in the 20th century. Several decades after it was first published in 1919 by Gustav Beckmann, who included the score in his article on Pachelbel’s chamber music, the piece became extremely popular. The Canon was first recorded in 1940 by Arthur Fiedler. Today it is frequently played at weddings and included on classical music compilations, and while not originally a Christmas song, is quite popular around the holiday season.
A young boy just out of high school, Gene Autry worked in a railway telegraph office in a Midwest Oklahoma town. Occasionally he’d pluck away at his guitar and sing during slow days. One night, a stranger appeared, listened while Autry performed, and said, “Young feller, you’re wasting your time here.” It was Will Rogers.
“Little Drummer Boy,” originally titled “Carol of the Drum,” is based on a traditional Czech carol. In 1957, Henry Onorati arranged the song for a recording by the Jack Halloran Singers, but it was not released in time for Christmas. The next year, Harry Simeone was looking for material to create a Christmas album, and Onorati introduced him to the “Carol of the Drum.” Simeone re-arranged the song, retitled it “The Little Drummer Boy,” and recorded it with the Harry Simeone Chorale on the album Sing We Now of Christmas. The song is the story of a young shepherd boy who joins the procession of the wise men and other humble admirers to the Savior’s manger. When the boy reaches the gathering, others present gifts, but all the boy can afford is his gift of making music on his drum. Over 200 versions of this song in at least seven languages have been written.
Everyone knows what happens if you pout or cry around Christmastime: Santa Claus passes you by, that’s what. “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” was written by J. Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie in 1934. Coots had been writing material for Eddie Cantor, a comedian with a radio show. Coots shared this song with Cantor, who nearly turned it down. Cantor’s wife, Ida, convinced him to air the song, and it was an instant smash hit with orders for 100,000 copies of sheet music the next day, and more than 400,000 copies sold by Christmas. The song is a traditional standard at Christmas time, and has been covered by numerous recording artists. In 1970 Rankin-Bass produced an hour-long animated television special based on the song, with narrator Fred Astaire telling the original story of Santa Claus.
