Never heard of it.
What? It’s only me? Damn!
Wow, I can’t believe how much in the minority I am! Grew up in NJ, born in '73. I know all the Christmas songs, or so I thought… Little Nell? Columbia from Rocky Horror?
Joe
I learned this song as a kid some time in the early '70s, and it already had a reputation for being obscure, or at least old-fashioned.
I had always heard it as rooftop too.
Next comes the stocking of Prunella
Santa bring her a fella
And make sure he’s more than a pal
'Cause the girl’s ugly and virgin-AL
You ho ho
The girl is a ho
Yo ho ho
The girl is a ho
Up on the roof the pervert’s sick
Getting it on with old St Nick
I have it on two CDs: One sung by the Lettermen, and the other played by the River City Ragtime Band.
And both have it as “housetop,” though I think I leaned it as “rooftop.”
I think Raffi sang it, right? So I and every other Canadian child born in the 80s must know it. (I’m pretty sure if you played that album for me now, I could sing along with every word despite not having listened to it in a decade.)
I used to know all the lyrics - I was in the school choir and we’d always have a performance near the holidays. I don’t think I can remember all the verses anymore though.
It was familiar when I was a kid, though I don’t hear it much anymore. Yes, as above poster says, I think of it as a school performance song.
Me too!
But “hooves” is harder to rhyme.
Not sure if it was actually written there, but I went to elementary school in Westerville, OH and I know the song quite well. We were taught in school that Hanby wrote the song in Westerville.
Up on the housetop reindeer hooves
Scratching hell out of people’s rooves!
I just want to point out that I, personally, would under no circumstances go up on the housetop with good St. Nick. The suggestion that I might always bothered me. Good St. Nick comes to me!
For everyone snarking on “reindeer paws,” perhaps I’m getting whooshed, but the actual lyric is “Up on the housetop the reindeer PAUSE, out jumps good old Santa Claus.”
The only reason I’m not sure it’s a whoosh is because, in my not-so-distant past, I did think it was “paws.”
According to Wikipedia, Hanby wrote the song in New Paris, OH.
Well, it’s Wikipedia. It could say Westerville easily enough. 
Is that the one that goes:
Up on the housetop reindeer pause,
Antennae’s caught poor Santa Claus.
I feel like I just starting hearing this with the Kimberly Locke version a couple of years ago.
It’s rooftop, not housetop.
We sang it at my kindergarten Christmas show. We had hand movements and everything. I have never heard the song since then though (unless I was singing it to my big sister - she likes the song).