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“Jingle Bells” is a Fraud!
There’s practically nothing about “Jingle Bells” that corresponds with reality.
During the Christmas season, you can’t escape it. You can’t turn on a radio, walk through a mall, get on an elevator, or even sit in your dentist’s office without having your ears — and your brain — assaulted with it over and over:
Jingle bells, jingle bells
Jingle all the way!
Oh what fun it is to ride in a one-horse open sleigh
Recently, after repeatedly hearing this ditty to the point where I couldn’t get it out of my mind, my engineer’s brain got curious about where it came from and what it’s really all about. So, I did some research. What I found has convinced me that practically nothing about the song is the way it appears on the surface.
First of all, “Jingle Bells” isn’t about Christmas at all. It was written in 1857 by James Lord Pierpont, who intended it to be sung during the Thanksgiving season. I suppose Medford, Massachusetts, where Pierpont wrote the song, might have snow at Thanksgiving. But for most of the country, when it comes to singing about a holiday and snow, a white Christmas makes a lot more sense than a white Thanksgiving. So, contrary to its author’s intention, “Jingle Bells” became a Christmas song.
