Jingles

Long, long ago, before this earth had any girls and boys

To hang their stockings on the shelf, expecting Christmas toys,

Good Santa was a big white cloud that floated in the sky;

if you had lived in those old days, you'd seen him floating by.

But when the children came to rule upon good Mother Earth,

She took kind Santa from the sky and made him God of Mirth;

To bring at every Christmas time good gifts to girls and boys

And make them all so happy with a lot of lovely toys.

Far, far among the icebergs, in the cold and freezing zone,

She built for him a palace, where he lives almost alone,

With only good old Mrs. Claus to keep him company,

And sometimes Cousin Nicholas for two days or for three.

Wise Mother Earth she knew this clime would suit good Santa well,

For here no foolish, idle folks would ever come to dwell;

Nor pay the good Saint visits which would waste his precious time,

While he could work much faster here than in a warmer clime.

But never did he suffer from the icebergs at the Pole,

As Fairies kept his fireplace all full of red hot coal;

Or heaped bright burning logs on it as full as it could hold,

So Santa never felt at all old Jack Frost's biting cold.


Likewise these Fairies brought to him and his most faithful spouse,

Just everything that they could need to keep a cozy house,

And even cooked their victuals and brought them every day

Exactly at the proper time, upon a huge hot tray.

And after they had eaten all the dainties on the tiny,

The good kind fairies they would come and take the tray away;

So Mrs. Claus had no excuse for being cross or sad,

Since no experience she had had with Bridgets getting mad.

When Santa finished all his toys, he put them in a sack,

Where he intended carrying them upon his great broad back,

But Mother Earth surprised the saint and to his palace led

Eight lovely prancing reindeer and a large commodious sled.

These reindeer were the cousins of swift Pegasus, the steed

Who helped the hero Perseus when he was in great need;

And like the flying hero horse, they lived up in the sky,

'Till Mother Earth had need of them to help old Santa fly.

And so on every Christmas eve for full ten hundred years,

Good Santa and his reindeer fleet have banished childrens' tears,

By bringing them 'most all the gifts their little hearts could wish,

And filling stockings, shoes and plates and great round pudding dish.