Rodgers and Hammerstein at Christmas

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Composer Richard Rodgers
pictured in the December 29, 1952
issue of Life

As December 25^th approaches, you can’t help buthear Christmas music and wintery tunes in stores and on the radio.

Rodgers and Hammerstein, the musical partners who wrote Oklahoma!, have a tunethat’s often heard these days – the classic “My Favorite Things” from The Sound of Music.

While the song has no mention of Christmas or gift giving (other than mentioning brown paper packages),somehow this musical favorite has become acceptable as a holiday carol. Certainlythe lyrics of warm woolen mittens, sleighbells, snowflakes and silvery whitewinters fit the season – but it’s not exactly a yuletide song. I suppose youcould say that people are listingtheir “favorite things” that money can’t necessarily buy. However, for manyyears there have been traditional television broadcasts of the classic JulieAndrews movie during the Christmas and Easter seasons. I certainly remember it on a black andwhite screen in my grandparents’ basement while we of the younger set played acutthroat game of Hi Ho! Cherry-O on the floor. Perhaps this song is justingrained in our subconscious feel-good memories of the holidays?

I have learned this week that Rodgers and Hammerstein actuallydid write their very own Christmas carol. In the spring of 1952, Life magazine commissioned a yuletidesong from the duo, published under the title “Happy Christmas, LittleFriend” in the December 29th issue later that year.

From the article in Life

The article featured complete lyrics and music, as well asan article on the creation of the song. [Read the article here in a Google Book search.] In the same working stylethey used on projects like Oklahoma!,Hammerstein tackled the song first, writing a complete set of lyrics - in themiddle of the summer, no less - before handing the words over to Rodgers tocompose the music. Incidentally, the fee for writing the song inaugurated theRodgers & Hammerstein Foundation which served to provide training foryoung musical theatre artists.

Rosemary Clooney sings "Happy Christmas, Little Friend" as shown in this picture from a follow-up article in Life.

The song was never incredibly popular, though it wasrecorded by Rosemary Clooney and became the official song for the NationalTuberculosis Association’s Christmas Seal campaign. There doesn’t appear to bea single YouTube entry for the song, but you can hear brief audio samples onthe Rodgers and Hammerstein website.

Check out this Rodgers & Hammerstein tune for yourholiday listening…and get ready to tap your toes to the memorable Oklahoma! this summer.