# Over the River and Through the Wood - Thanksgiving song



## Hazel (Oct 23, 2010)

Can someone please tell me when and how "Over the River and Through the Wood" became a Christmas song? In my school days, it was a Thanksgiving song. The second stanza even mentions Thanksgiving. Before that it was a poem by Julia Marie Childs - a Thanksgiving poem. It says " 'tis Thanksgiving Day". Sometime when my back was turned it lost the Thanksgiving stanza and gained Christmas greetings. When did this happen? Who did it? 

Thanks.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

I've always viewed Over the River as a Thanksgiving Song. Are you talking about Jingle Bells? that was originally associated with Thanksgiving...


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Wiki suggests that it can be "adapted" for Christmas.


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## Hazel (Oct 23, 2010)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> I've always viewed Over the River as a Thanksgiving Song. Are you talking about Jingle Bells? that was originally associated with Thanksgiving...


No, I am talking about "Over the River and Through the Wood". Yesterday, in trying to find a video of it, every one that I found was a combination of part "Over the River" and part "Merry Christmas" or "Jingle Bells" with no mention of Thanksgiving. I asked a friend. She said she grew up with it as a Christmas song and never heard it as a Thanksgiving song. Wiki, of course, and other sites, explain it as a Thanksgiving poem and then song but I found no one singing it that way. My conclusion was that, somewhere along the line, it became a Christmas song. I just wondered when and where. Thought someone might know.

All of my old traditions are being washed away! :-(


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

Hazel said:


> No, I am talking about "Over the River and Through the Wood". Yesterday, in trying to find a video of it, every one that I found was a combination of part "Over the River" and part "Merry Christmas" or "Jingle Bells" with no mention of Thanksgiving. I asked a friend. She said she grew up with it as a Christmas song and never heard it as a Thanksgiving song. Wiki, of course, and other sites, explain it as a Thanksgiving poem and then song but I found no one singing it that way. My conclusion was that, somewhere along the line, it became a Christmas song. I just wondered when and where. Thought someone might know.
> 
> All of my old traditions are being washed away! :-(


Luckily when in my elementary school we did our Thanksgiving play in kindergarten, we sang Over the River, so I've never known it used otherwise.


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## Lunasong (Mar 15, 2011)

Secular Christmas is swallowing everything...even your traditional Thanksgiving song.


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