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Has “Jingle Bells” Always Been a Christmas Song?
The next time you go caroling and want to do something silly, try singing a non-Christmas song, like "Jingle Bells." No, we're not snowing you. The iconic Yuletide ditty might talk about sleigh rides, bells on bobtails, and laughing all the way, but it never specifically mentions Christmas, and is likely to have been written for an entirely different holiday.
The origins of the song are somewhat unclear: while we know the jingle was written by James Pierpont in the mid-1800s, we don't know why. According to Pierpont's hometown of Medford, Massachusetts, he penned it in a local tavern, but he copyrighted it under the title “One Horse Open Sleigh” while living in Savannah, Georgia, and dealing with a snowless winter.
Most scholars believe Pierpont wrote the song for a Sunday school program during Thanksgiving. It was so popular that the kids sang it again at Christmas, and within a couple of years the tune was renamed "Jingle Bells."
More Christmas song surprises:
- American songwriter Johnny Marks, who penned numerous iconic Christmas songs, such as "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer," "Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree," and "Holly Jolly Christmas," was Jewish.
- "White Christmas" was played on Armed Forces Radio in April 1975 as a secret way to tell U.S. soldiers to evacuate Saigon during the Vietnam War.
- Speaking of "White Christmas," the original version released by Bing Crosby in 1942 is the biggest-selling single in history.
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![“Jingle Bells” wasn’t written as a Christmas song; it's thought to have first been performed on Thanksgiving.]()
“Jingle Bells” wasn’t written as a Christmas song; it's thought to have first been performed on Thanksgiving.
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