Countdown to Christmas (Christmas Stockings)

DESCRIPTION: "Santa Claus is coming, children; He'll be here in (x) days, Hang up your stockings, Go to bed quickly, And your close your eyes tight as you can, For he peeps through the keyhole to see if you're sleeping, He's a jolly good-natured old man."
AUTHOR: Ethel H. Chesterfield (source: Primary Education Magazine)
EARLIEST DATE: 1922 (Primary Education Magazine)
KEYWORDS: christmas home clothes | sleep Santa Claus
FOUND IN: US(NE)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
ADDITIONAL: Primary Education (Magazine), Volume 30 (available on Google Books, under the title "Popular Educator"), December 1922 issue, p. 643, "Christmas Stocking" (1 text, 1 tune)
RECORDINGS:
Artricia Gordon, Katrina Esocoff, "Countdown to Christmas" (Piotr-Archive #370, recorded 11/26/2022)
NOTES [83 words]: This clearly originated as a school song -- but none of the handful of versions I've seen online matches the original. The Piotr archive version has the chorus but misses the verse; a blog called "Feathers and Faith" inserted part of the verse into the chorus; other Internet citations seemed to include fragments. I'm not sure it's traditional, but there is just enough variation that I decided to include it.
The trick in the Piotr archive, of counting down days, strikes me as quite clever. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.7
File: DPio370

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