The Christmas Encyclopedia by William D. Crump

Author:William D. Crump
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McFarland
Published: 2013-08-23T04:00:00+00:00

John Grin’s Christmas

See A Christmas Carol (subheading Film and Television Versions)

Jolly Old St. Nicholas

American children’s song, possibly composed in the latter nineteenth century. Aside from African American spirituals, “Jolly Old St. Nicholas” (“Ole” in some printings) is the only American Christmas standard that is completely anonymous. It has been suggested that Benjamin R. Hanby, composer of another American holiday standard, “Up on the Housetop” (published in 1866), also wrote “Jolly Old St. Nicholas,” but the evidence is only superficial: both songs mention a child named Nell or Nellie, and some music scholars believe that the two songs are written in a virtually identical style. If Hanby is the composer, the “Nellie” mentioned in “Jolly Old St. Nicholas” could have referred to a runaway slave named Nellie, whom Hanby’s father had sheltered in pre–Civil War days and about whom Hanby wrote in his song “Darling Nellie Gray.”

See also Up on the Housetop.

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