Cuddle up to the Yule Log Trivia Quiz

Answer: Winter Wonderland

"Winter Wonderland", from 1934, music by Felix Bernard and Richard Bernhard Smith. Smith wrote the lyrics while undergoing treatment for the TB that killed him a year later.

Guy Lombardo had a big hit with it in 1934, and Perry Como's version from his 1959 Christmas album is still heard in shopping malls all over.

Answer: The Christmas Song

"The Christmas Song", or as many of us know it, "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire", written in 1945 by Robert Wells and the Velvet Fog himself, Mel Tormé, during a heat wave. It has of course been covered by everyone you could imagine, but Nat Kind Cole gave us what I consider the classic version.

Answer: First Christmas away from Home

"But it's warm and clean and free,
And there are worse places to be
At least it means no beating from her Dad
And if she cries because it's Christmas Day
She hopes that it won't show
First Christmas away from home"

A lesser known song from Canada's beloved Stan Rogers - decades now after his tragic death at 33 in a plane accident, he is still mourned. So far as I can tell, this song has only been recorded on his live album, "Between the Breaks", from 1979.

Answer: Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!

Another song written during a heat wave - in those days before air conditioning was common, I guess songwriters had to do whatever they could to feel cool!

This one came, in 1945, from Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn, both well known writers of songs for Broadway. Styne composed, among many others, "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend", "People" and "Three Coins in a Fountain". Cahn gave us the lyrics for "High Hopes", "Call Me Irresponsible", "My Kind of Town", and hundreds of others. He and Styne worked together frequently.

Answer: All I Want for Christmas is You

Mariah Carey's 1994 song started off as a modest hit, and just keeps getting bigger! It finally hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2019 - a very long road to the top. The song (yet another one composed in the middle of summer) is by now a solid Christmas standard.

Answer: Santa Baby

This 1953 recording from Eartha Kitt (written by Joan Javits and Philip Springer), reminds us that Christmas isn't just for children - it might not just be Mommy kissing Santa Claus! The song stirred up some controversy at the time (and since) and has even been banned now and then here and there.

"Santa Baby" has been extensively covered, notably by Madonna, Ariana Grande, Kylie Minogue, and Taylor Swift, but for me, it belongs to Catwoman. Eartha Kitt has the perfect voice, the perfect tone, the perfect timing.

Answer: Merry Christmas, Darling

"Merry Christmas, Darling" came out as a single in 1970, from The Carpenters.

It's a pretty sweet story. Richard and Karen Carpenter's choral director at college had written the song, to a different melody, many years before when he was in his teens. They were looking for some new Christmas music, and he passed it on to them, not expecting much. Richard gave it a new tune, and a few years later, they recorded it.

Answer: I've Got my Love to Keep Me Warm

"I cannot remember a worse December
Just watch those icicles form
What do I care if icicles form
I've got my love to keep me warm"

Written in 1937 by the same genius who brought us "White Christmas", Irving Berlin. It's appeared on a lot of albums, both Christmas and not, and been covered by not only jazz greats like Ella Fitzgerald and Les Brown, but some more on the pop side like Dean Martin and Doris Day. Still, when it plays in my head, it's Billie Holiday I hear.

Answer: Frosty the Snowman

"Frosty the Snowman
Knew the sun was hot that day
So he said, 'Let's run,
and have some fun
before I melt away'"

Gene Autry had had a huge hit in 1949 with "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and "Frosty the Snowman" was an attempt to repeat that success the next year. It worked!

Jimmy Durante and Nat King Cole also had hits with the song in that same year (when I was little I had a record with Durante's version on it, along with Lionel Barrymore reading "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" and Mary Mayo singing something heartfelt - ah, the fifties...).

In 1960 Rankin/Bass made a TV special that can be very easily found every December still, more than 60 years later.

Answer: Sleigh Ride

And yet *another* Christmas standard composed during a heat wave! "Sleigh Ride" was written in 1946 by Leroy Anderson, and was originally an instrumental - the lyrics were not written until four years later, by Mitchell Parish. An early recording was by Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops, on a snazzy red 45.

The sound effects are often the best part of this one - we've got horse hooves clopping and whips snapping and bells jingling, and it's all a lot of fun.