The beautiful bittersweet song “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” written in 1943 by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane, is one of the most beloved festive songs of all – but it nearly ended up discarded in the garbage bin.
Martin, a Broadway composer, started working a melody for the song but was struggling to create a bridge after completing the first 16 bars. “I found a little madrigal-like tune that I liked, but couldn’t make work, so I played with it for two or three days and then threw it in the wastebasket,” he recalled in 1989. Fortunately, Blane, who had been working in the adjacent room, heard the tune and told him it was too interesting to discard. The song was originally recorded by Judy Garland for her role in the 1944 movie Meet Me in St. Louis, and then again shortly after by Frank Sinatra in 1947.
Hundreds of top stars have cut their own versions of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” since Garland and Sinatra, including Tori Amos, Garth Brooks, Lady A, James Taylor, Bob Dylan, John Denver & The Muppets, Neil Diamond, and The Carpenters. Martin said that one of his favorite versions was by jazz singer Mel Tormé, who composed the famous “The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)” song. “Mel wrote a beautiful new verse for it, was really out of this world,” said Martin. When John Williams oversaw the score for the 1990 movie Home Alone, he asked Tormé to record a new version of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”
Although versions were recorded in the 50s and 60s by Dinah Shore, Doris Day, and Glen Campbell, the song also has a special appeal for modern singers. Chrissie Hynde believes the song “packs an emotional wallop,” while Bette Midler said its appeal was that the lyrics are “hopeful but full of melancholy.” Linda Ronstadt said she liked both the “muddle through” line and the bravado of the “hanging the shining star” replacement – so included both in her 2000 version. As for Martin, who was 96 when he died in 2011, he remained convinced that “muddle through” was the most honest version. “It’s just so kind of…down-to-earth,” he said late in life.
Please enjoy this poem, it reminds me of my childhood and those magical Christmas evenings trying to stay awake to catch a glimpse of Santa!
A Visit from St. Nicholas
By Clement Clarke Moore
‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds;
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads; And mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap,
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow,
Gave a lustre of midday to objects below,
When what to my wondering eyes did appear,
But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer,
With a little old driver so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment he must be St. Nick. More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name:
“Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donner and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!”
As leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;
So up to the housetop the coursers they flew
With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too—
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a pedler just opening his pack.
His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples, how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow;
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and a little round belly
That shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight—
“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”
Source: The Random House Book of Poetry for Children (Random House Inc., 1983)