A Story of Misheard Christmas Song Lyrics

Misheard Christmas Song Lyrics

My daughter has recently been getting into the festive spirit by singing the song We Wish You a Merry Christmas. Unfortunately she only knows the words to the first part of the song and she has decided to sing them in a constant loop. It’s very cute to hear her singing in English but after a while we started to wish she would move on to some other song in the wide variety of Christmas hits. Sadly she is very content with just the one Christmas classic. In an attempt to give us at least some small relief my wife tried to teach her the second part of the song recently. This had the side effect of giving me a surprise revelation of misheard Christmas song lyrics as I listened to her do this from the kitchen.

Wife
(Singing)
“Good tidings we bring to you and your kin. We wish…”

Me
(Interrupting in sudden shock)
“Wait! Did you just sing you and your kin?!”

Wife
“Yeah.”

Me
“Oh my god! I thought it was you and your King.”

Wife
“Ahhh. So that’s what you’ve been singing.”

Me
“That’s what I’ve been singing for the past thirty-seven years!”

Wife
(Suddenly a little less sure)
“Well… I’m pretty sure it’s kin.”

Me
(Suddenly convinced)
“It must be. That makes so much more sense!”

We quickly googled it and discovered that she was right. This year for Christmas my wife got me the correction of a song I’ve been singing wrong my entire life (And I’m supposed to be the native English speaker in the family).

Our daughter has continued to sing the first part of the song on a loop but she does now occasional throw in a line from Jingle Bells for variety. I wonder what other misheard Christmas song lyrics I’ve been singing my whole life. Merry Christmas.

Stuart

Stuart is an accident prone Englishman who has been living in the Netherlands since 2001. Even his move to the country was an unintentional accident, the result of replying to a cryptic job advertisement he found one day in a local British magazine. Since then he has learned to love the Dutch (so much so that he married one of them) and now calls the country home. He started the blog Invading Holland in 2006 as a place to share his strange stories of language misunderstandings, cultural confusions and his own accident prone nature.

11 Responses

  1. Gez says:

    If it makes you feel any better, Stu, I’ve always thought it was ‘king’ too. Must be a guy thing.

  2. Rob says:

    That would be “Jingle Bells”, not Jiggle Bells… but you knew that, right? :P

  3. vallypee says:

    Ha, Stu, if I’m honest, I’ve never even thought about it and just sang something that could have been kin, king or even bin. It was what ever sounded right without worrying about meaning….I confess I’m not big on song lyrics, so I can totally understand how you came to mix that up. At least now I also know what it is for sure instead of just making sounds with my mouth that can’t really be deemed words at all :)

  4. Julie M says:

    I thought it was King too!!

  5. Dragonlady says:

    How about” while shepherds wash their socks by night” That’s a classic

  6. Dickie Bird says:

    Until I was about 30, I thought Good King Wenslas last looked out on the feast of Stephen.

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