Facts About Jingle Bells:

Jingle Bells is one of the most well-known Christmas carols in the world. Originally wrote in the autumn of 1857 by James Lord Pierpont, and was published under the title “One Horse Open Sleigh”. James composed this song in 1850 at Medford, in Massachusetts.

The lyrics today have changed ever so slightly from the original version, and there’s also a few verses that you never seem to hear any more! So below is the full version of Jingle Bells.

Dashing through the snow

In a one-horse open sleigh

O’er the fields we go

Laughing all the way

Bells on bobtail ring

Making spirits bright

What fun it is to laugh and sing

A sleighing song tonight!

(chorus)

Jingle bells, jingle bells,

Jingle all the way.

Oh! what fun it is to ride

In a one-horse open sleigh.

Jingle bells, jingle bells,

Jingle all the way;

Oh! what fun it is to ride

In a one-horse open sleigh.

A day or two ago

I thought I’d take a ride

And soon, Miss Fanny Bright

Was seated by my side,

The horse was lean and lank

Misfortune seemed his lot

He got into a drifted bank

And then we got upset.

(chorus)

A day or two ago,

The story I must tell

I went out on the snow,

And on my back I fell;

A gent was riding by

In a one-horse open sleigh,

He laughed as there I sprawling lie,

But quickly drove away.

(chorus)

Now the ground is white

Go it while you’re young,

Take the girls tonight

and sing this sleighing song;

Just get a bobtailed bay

Two forty as his speed

Hitch him to an open sleigh

And crack! you’ll take the lead.

(chorus)

Jingle Bells also became the very first song to be broadcast from out in space! On the 16th December 1965, Tom Stafford and Wally Schirra, two astronauts from the Gemini 6 space program, sent the following message to mission control: “We have an object, looks like a satellite going from north to south, probably in polar orbit… I see a command module and eight smaller modules in front. The pilot of the command module is wearing a red suit….”. The two astronauts then started to play a harmonica, and a set of sleigh bells that they had managed to smuggle on board, to the tune of Jingle bells!