Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

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While we muddle through somehow
Glenn Harlan Reynolds
Dec 23, 2023

I think it’s my favorite Christmas song.

My reasons are kind of personal. As a kid the only Christmas album we owned was a giveaway Christmas record from the Pure Oil Company, my grandfather’s employer. Frank Sinatra got the title cut, and there were other Christmas songs covered by Jo Stafford (O Little Town of Bethlehem) the Hi-Los (Deck the Halls) and so on. To me, the artists on this album seemed impossibly old at the time (they were recording before I was born!) and the Pure Oil connection made me feel like it was something special.

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas is associated with Sinatra, but it comes from Meet Me in St. Louis, and it’s not really a cheerful song as written. The version we had had the 1947 Sinatra version, with the line “until then we’ll have to muddle through somehow,” which in the later remake was revised by Dean Martin to “hang a shinging star upon the highest bough.” Both are great lines, though these days I’m more in the muddling-through mood.

(Snip)

But, you know, we did muddle through somehow. So let your heart be light. Perhaps by next year, our troubles will be out of sight.

Say a little prayer, and hang a shinging star upon the highest bough. And have yourself a merry little Christmas, now.

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