# Christmas songs - so many questions **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** music\ **Created:** [December 23, 2025, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-songs-so-many-questions/1025994 "2025-12-23T22:03:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![De\_La\_Rue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@De\_La\_Rue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/De_La_Rue)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2025, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-songs-so-many-questions/1025994/81 "2025-12-26T17:39:30Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > What makes you think they’re teens? The bridge was [revised to imply the characters are kids](https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/articles/was-parson-brown-from-winter-wonderland-a-real-person/) (“We’ll have lots of fun with Mr. Snowman/Until the other kiddies knock him down”), and some covers use _both_ bridges, placing the snowman-builders in a quantum state of being a young adult couple and innocent tykes at the same time. Also, we all agree the revised bridge is shittier, right? It’s cloyingly juvenile and rhymes “snowman” WITH ITSELF. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2025, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-songs-so-many-questions/1025994/82 "2025-12-26T17:46:32Z")
> [@De\_La\_Rue](#): > > The bridge was [revised to imply the characters are kids](https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/articles/was-parson-brown-from-winter-wonderland-a-real-person/) That is my LEAST FAVORITE Grammar Girl column ever. ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2025, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-songs-so-many-questions/1025994/83 "2025-12-26T17:49:51Z")
> [@Jeff\_Lichtman](#): > > Did the girl ever get her hippopotamus? In a way, yes. The Oklahoma City Zoo used her song as a promotion to get donations for a hippopotamus. They bought one and named her Matilda. To this day a statue of Gayla and Matilda stands at the zoo. ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2025, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-songs-so-many-questions/1025994/84 "2025-12-26T17:51:11Z")
> [@De\_La\_Rue](#): > > quantum state of being a young adult couple and innocent tykes at the same time So, teenagers? ---
**Author:** ![De\_La\_Rue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@De\_La\_Rue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/De_La_Rue)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2025, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-songs-so-many-questions/1025994/85 "2025-12-26T18:00:26Z")
Nah, I’m thinking “adult couple” and “young”, like in their 20s as **themapleleaf** mentions above. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2025, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-songs-so-many-questions/1025994/86 "2025-12-26T21:31:38Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > How about “Later on, we’ll perspire, cause we put one two many logs on the fire.” Some native-american saying- likely mythical- “Native make small fire, get warm around it, White man make BIG fire, stay warm by fetching more wood”. ---
**Author:** ![Lare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/53a042/32.png) [@Lare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lare)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2025, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-songs-so-many-questions/1025994/87 "2025-12-26T22:21:17Z")
To continue the discussion on “Baby, It’s Cold Outside“ the Muppets had an episode with Joseph Gordon Levitt and Madonna singing it with the tradition gender roles reversed. (It was from a simpler time and I remember no uproar about it in any way.) [YouTube video](https://youtu.be/ZtoW4aV-CIc?si=opUOp1pz5rqORcFk) ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2025, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-songs-so-many-questions/1025994/88 "2025-12-26T22:25:35Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > **The Twelve Days of Christmas** - What does one do with all that accumulated crap? And where does one put all that stuff? 12 partridges, 22 doves, 30 hens, 42 geese and 42 swans add up to a lot of bird shit to clean up. It mostly exists to provide material for recursive function exercises in coding tutorials. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2025, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-songs-so-many-questions/1025994/89 "2025-12-26T22:31:34Z")
> [@Schnitte](#): > > It mostly exists to provide material for recursive function exercises in coding tutorials. What Schnitte says. blahblahblahblahblahblah tutorials. What Chefguy hears. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2025, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-songs-so-many-questions/1025994/90 "2025-12-26T22:44:21Z")
Selma Blair and Rainn Wilson also recorded a gender-flipped version (as a Gap ad, of all things): [![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/_hEJQbEYjRg/hqdefault.jpg?sqp=-oaymwEmCOADEOgC8quKqQMa8AEB-AH-BIAC6AKKAgwIABABGH8gKygYMA8=&rs=AOn4CLCeRgMyN3y50sTsB-alsRXQq3kkyA "Baby It's Cold Outside - Selma Blair & Rainn Wilson") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hEJQbEYjRg) ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2025, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-songs-so-many-questions/1025994/91 "2025-12-26T23:15:12Z")
_We three kings of Orient are;_ …are what?!? ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2025, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-songs-so-many-questions/1025994/92 "2025-12-27T00:27:29Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > In the northern hemisphere, only Polaris appears in one position where you could use it as a direction to travel towards. Stars, planets, and comets would all appear to rise and set as the earth rotates so at what point at night do you head toward the star and at what point do you know to stop traveling? I’m surprised you missed the fundamental dogma of Christian religion. Arthur C Clark notwithstanding, the “star” wasn’t a star, or a planet, or a supernova, it was “magic”. The light hovered over Bethlehem by God’s will. I mean, it’s basic stuff. > [@Spiderman](#): > > 🎶 _Walking in our winter underwear_ 🎶 correction: _women’s_ underwear. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. > [@HeyHomie](#): > > Why on Earth would Parson Brown be at all interested in whether or not two children/teens are married? Another fundamental misunderstanding. They are just play acting. pretending to get married because that’s what adults do. ---
**Author:** ![anny\_m](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@anny\_m](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anny_m)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2025, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-songs-so-many-questions/1025994/93 "2025-12-27T00:27:48Z")
“Last Christmas I gave you my heart” OK, maybe a way of saying _I Love You_. “But the very next day, you gave it away” Huh? If Jane gives John her heart, how does he give it away? “Here, Fred, have Jane’s heart”? “This year to save me from tears I’ll give it to someone special” Because people often give their hearts to folks they find common and unremarkable. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2025, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-songs-so-many-questions/1025994/94 "2025-12-27T00:33:37Z")
I’ve always had a huge question about the use of the (homophobic) F-word in Fairy Tale of New York. Not the use of the word, it was unfortunately completely acceptable in 1987 (I mean not in polite circles, but it was socially unacceptable because it was allusion to homosexuality, not because it was offensive to homosexual people). But as an insult by a women against her male romantic partner it makes no sense to me, even against a drunken asshole soon be ex. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2025, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-songs-so-many-questions/1025994/95 "2025-12-27T01:21:47Z")
> [@anny\_m](#): > > “Last Christmas I gave you my heart” > > OK, maybe a way of saying _I Love You_. > > “But the very next day, you gave it away” > > Huh? If Jane gives John her heart, how does he give it away? “Here, Fred, have Jane’s heart”? That’s funny, I had the exact same thought the other day when the song played on the car radio on the way to my in-laws for Christmas Eve dinner. Yeah, it makes no sense. The lyric should have been ‘gave it back’ but of course that doesn’t rhyme. So many song lyrics have been rendered nonsensical by the need to shoehorn in a rhyme. > [@griffin1977](#): > > But as an insult by a women against her male romantic partner it makes no sense to me, even against a drunken asshole soon be ex. It seems pretty clear-cut to me. They were obviously a very messed-up, dysfunctional couple; insulting him by questioning his heterosexuality with a vulgar term for a homosexual is, or at least was at one time, about the worst insult one could inflict upon a certain type of man. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2025, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-songs-so-many-questions/1025994/96 "2025-12-27T01:29:36Z")
> [@solost](#): > > _We three kings of Orient are;_ > > …are what?!? “Smoking on a rubber cigar” ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2025, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-songs-so-many-questions/1025994/97 "2025-12-27T01:44:07Z")
> [@anny\_m](#): > > Huh? If Jane gives John her heart, how does he give it away? “Here, Fred, have Jane’s heart”? Just example 0843985 of a song writer having main character syndrome. Of course something that happened to someone he hooked up with (or just professed his love for, unreciprocated, as far as we know), a day later that didn’t involve him, is all about hurting _him_. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2025, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-songs-so-many-questions/1025994/98 "2025-12-27T01:53:15Z")
I’m surprised you missed the fundamental dogma of Christian religion. Arthur C Clark notwithstanding, the “star” wasn’t a star, or a planet, or a supernova, it was “magic”. The light hovered over Bethlehem by God’s will. I mean, it’s basic stuff. It was so magical that no historic records exist for a light hovering over a specific point on the earth. Believe what you will about the divinity of Jesus, this just didn’t happen any more than Noah’s flood did. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2025, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-songs-so-many-questions/1025994/99 "2025-12-27T02:30:52Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > I’ve always had a huge question about the use of the (homophobic) F-word in Fairy Tale of New York. That is not the title- the title is Fairytale of New York. But I suppose you mean the word that also means a bundle of wood? Yeah, that is not right in that context. > [@kenobi\_65](#): > > “Smoking on a rubber cigar” LOADED cigar. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2025, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-songs-so-many-questions/1025994/100 "2025-12-27T02:35:48Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > That is not the title- the title is Fairytale of New York No I was talking about the well know Irish folk punk Christmas song “The (homophobic) F-word in Fairy Tale of New York.” 😉 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-songs-so-many-questions/1025994.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-songs-so-many-questions/1025994.md?page=6)