Songwriters were ‘thinking Christmas’ during 1945 heat wave

One of America’s most popular Christmas songs, “The Christmas Song,” was written on a sultry July day in 1945 within the Toluca Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles.

Residential air conditioning was still in a rather primitive state in 1945. Yet, Bob Wells, 22, and Mel Tormé, 19, had agreed to meet for a songwriting session at the Wells family home.

Lydia Hutchinson of Performing Songwriter Enterprises, based in Nashville, Tenn., said: “Tormé let himself in and called out for Bob. No answer. He walked over to the piano, and there, resting on the music board, was a pad of paper with four lines of a verse.”

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire

Jack Frost nipping at your nose

Yuletide carols being sung by a choir

And folks dressed up like Eskimos

“When Wells walked into the room, dressed in tennis shorts and a T-shirt, Tormé asked him about the little poem,” Hutchinson said.

“It’s so hot today, I thought I’d write something to cool myself off,” Wells replied. “All I could think of was Christmas and cold weather.”

It doesn’t get much colder than “Jack Frost,” a mythical character who originated in England in the 1730s and personifies ice, snow, sleet and freezing cold.

 

Pictured as a younger, sprite-like variant of “Old Man Winter,” Jack enjoys nipping human fingers, noses, ears and toes with a blast of frosty weather, while leaving fern-like patterns on cold windows in winter.

Some contemporary sources say Jack Frost is the husband of “Suzy Snowflake.”

“The ‘chestnuts roasting on an open fire’ image was a memory from Wells’ childhood in Boston, when vendors on street corners served up paper cones full of roasted chestnuts at Christmastime,” Hutchinson added.

 

“I think you might have something here,” Tormé said.

“Sitting down at the piano, he flashed on a melody idea for the opening lines. Wells grabbed his pad and pen, and the duo was off and running like a bobsled down a snowy hill,” Hutchinson wrote.

“The Christmas Song” was completed about 45 minutes later. That same day, Wells and Tormé took their song to Nat King Cole, who fell in love with the tune and snapped it right up.

It took a full year, however, for Cole to get into a studio to record it, but his recording finally came out in the summer of 1946. But then, he kept fiddling with it.

 

The 1961 stereophonic version with a full orchestra “is generally regarded as definitive” and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1974. Over time, the song has become familiarly known as “Chestnuts Roasting on An Open Fire.”

Aysegul “Ice” Sanford of Atlanta, Ga., hosts the online food service “Foolproof Living.” Born and raised in Turkey, she learned how to prepare chestnuts from her mother.

“During the colder months, as soon as chestnuts hit the stores, I buy some American chestnuts or Italian chestnuts. I find peeling these to be easier than Chinese chestnuts,” Sanford said.

“If you can, pick chestnuts one by one, making sure that they are free of blemishes and roughly the same size. They should be moist but not wet. Examine to make sure there is no mold.”

“We enjoy roasting them in a cast iron skillet on an open fire or grill,” Sanford said.

Although the only ingredients are chestnuts and water, roasting of chestnuts is tricky business. You don’t want to risk having your chestnuts explode in the fire. Sanford offers a step-by-step guide and safety tips at foolproofliving.com. There are tons of chestnut recipes posted online.