Belle of Liberty

Letting Freedom Ring

Thursday, December 16, 2010

All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth - A Christmas Music Countdown

“Every body Pauses and stares at me
These two teeth are gone as you can see
I don't know just who to blame for this catastrophe!
But my one wish on Christmas Eve is as plain as it can be!”

Music teacher Donald Yetter Gardner asked his second grade glass in Smithtown, Long Island, what they wanted for Christmas. Most of them answered with a lisp. As he looked out over the children, he noticed almost all of them had at least one front tooth missing.

In 30 minutes, Gardner wrote the comic Christmas classic, “All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth.” According to Wikipedia, the song was published in 1948 after a Witmark Music Company employee heard Gardner sing it a music teachers conference.

The song was originally recorded by Spike Jones & His City Slickers on Dec. 6, 1948, with lead vocal by George Rock. The song reached the top of pop charts in 1949. The Numerous other singers singers and performers have recorded the holiday favorite, including George Strait, Danny Kaye with The Andrews Sisters, The Platters, Nat King Cole (reportedly Gardner's favorite version), The Chipmunks, the Hampton String Quartet, The Three Stooges and the cast of Sesame Street.

When I was about six, our mother decided to have formal portrait of us taken. The photographer came, but my mother had an issue; she didn’t want any of us to smile and show our prominent “family teeth.” We had an inherited our father’s teeth, not hers, and mine were missing at the time.

She was so angry, that we all wound up in tears. To this day, my older brother doesn’t smile with his mouth open, although a laugh will bring about a display of the “family teeth.”

As a photographer, I get subjects who are reluctant to smile, because their smiles aren’t photo-perfect. In general, most people dislike having their pictures taken, for a variety of reasons. One poor woman went running out of the studio crying. Then there are other subjects are commercial-perfect.

Getting children to smile, especially with Santa, is either a breeze or a battle. But whether they’re front teeth are missing or not, Christmas morning is one time when most children all over America will be smiling.

As they watch their little ones tear open their presents, adults will be smiling for another reason (besides the fact that there’s no more Christmas shopping to do), for the Child who made it all possible.

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