10 thoughts on “The Virtual Musical Advent Calendar, December 7: Jingle Bells

  1. It’s also a song where almost all of the words are long forgotten (everything except the first verse and the chorus.) The song actually tells a story:

    Verse 1: Sleigh riding is awesome.
    Verse 2: I took my best girl for a ride, but I screwed up and we got dumped in the snow.
    Verse 3: People laughed at us.
    Verse 4: But sleigh riding is still awesome.Report

  2. It strikes me that a song about overland travel in the snow wouldn’t have resonated too well in an hypothetically independent Dixie.

    re: mistrel shows. It was even later (and more geographically diverse) than that. Yankee Doodle Dandy (in the 40’s) played the fact that George M Calhoun did them (in the golden age of vaudeville) pretty straight up. And I recently came across some home movies my grandfather made that showed a NYC (outerborough) women’s club doing blackface skits at a charity fundraiser in the early 50’s.Report

    1. I took that as ‘Let’s have the kind of fun our parents had!” more than as something that was common. (Just like Pete and Trudy’s charleston, which was space awesome.)

      Report

  3. Many early Americans in New England inherited a disdain for Christmas from their Puritan ancestors. December 25th was a work day just like another unless it fell on Sunday, in which case it was a Sabbath like another. Christmas was mainly celebrated among the Americans of Dutch or Anglican heritage and it was usually a rough and tumble carnival-like celebration. The domestication of Christmas that occurred after 1820, aided by German immigrants after 1848 really changed the holiday. The last vestiges of Protestant opposition to Christmas broke down and by 1870, Christmas was a national holiday.

    I sometimes wonder what Christmas would be like if it wasn’t domesticated.Report

    1. I sometimes wonder what Christmas would be like if it wasn’t domesticated.

      A snarling ravenous beast that you wouldn’t want to turn your back on?Report

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