All I Want for Christmas

Do you remember the Christmas song written in 1944 by Donald Yetter Gardner?  Gardner was a music teacher in Smithtown, NY.  He asked his students what they wanted for Christmas and noticed that many of the students had a front tooth missing as they answered his question with a lisp.  He wrote, All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth” in 30 minutes.  In a 1995 interview, Gardner said, “I was amazed at the way that silly little song was picked up by the whole country.”  

Spike Jones and The City Slickers recorded the song.  It reached the top of the charts in 1949.  I was five years old then and loved the song!  

“All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth, my two front teeth, 

just my two front teeth. Gee, if I could only have my two front teeth,

 then I could wish you a Merry Christmas.

It seems so long since I could say, ‘Sister Suzy sitting on a thistle,’

 Gosh, oh gee how happy I’d be if I could only ‘whithle.”  

When I first thought of the song today, I thought it was Jimmy Boyd who made the song popular—but no, I was mistaken, he sang another song we all thought was hilarious back then:  “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.”

I thought of “All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth” while sitting at the hospital today as my wife received her Christmas gift--a new knee!  It has always been difficult for me to find a Christmas gift for her, but this year I had no problem at all.  I couldn’t arrange to give it to her Christmas Day, because of the surgeon’s schedule—but it is a Christmas gift nonetheless. For the last several years she could have sung,  

“All I Want for Christmas Is A New Knee, one that doesn’t hurt all the time.

  Gosh, oh gee, how happy I’d be, if I could only walk without pain!”  

The surgeon assures me that the new knee is going to relieve her of that pain.  She’ll have a tough time with the physical therapy for the next several weeks—but when that is over—she’ll walk without pain.  What a Christmas gift—a new knee!  Miracles still happen.  

When I reported today’s successful surgery to a friend in Illinois, she responded:  “Wonderful!  Now you have to spoil her for the REST OF THE YEAR!”  “What?” I responded.  I just gave her a new knee for Christmas!  Now I should spoil her?”  “Yep! she answered.  “Here’s your choice…spoil her now or get her another new knee for Valentine’s Day.”