You’re Supposed To Be Playing Christmas Songs!

I don’t get people. I really don’t. 

This afternoon I was out at one of our Red Kettles – playing my guitar and singing Christmas / Holiday  songs. (I do this because I really can’t stand the sound of the bells, the bells, bells, bells, the ringing of the bells…)

At one point I was singing the song Glory in the Highest by A. P. Cobb.  Now, I grant you that this isn’t one of the more popular ones, but neither is it completely obscure.  As I was singing along a toothless old woman came by, dropped in a few coins into the kettle and then grabbed me by the arm – at which point I was rather forced to stop strumming the guitar.  She leaned right up close to me and said, “You’re supposed to be playing Christmas songs!”  (I thought for a moment there was going to be a repeat of this incident…) 

“It is a Christmas song,” I protested.

“No it’s not,” she said as she walked towards the door. “Not one of the old ones.”

(It was first published in 1893.)

Here's another version of the song that I composed: