Holiday
Horses & Animals
Jane E. B. Simmons
Riding on snow in a horse-drawn
sleigh, bundled in a soft warm blanket
and wearing pretty ear muffs and
matching gloves, was so fun in my
younger days when my father had a
one-horse-drawn sleigh housed in
one of our several barns at Arthur
Simmons Stables in Mexico, Missouri.
So, I easily associate a horse with
snow during the holidays from when
I lived in that cooler climate — before
I moved here to Florida where Santa
Claus wears shorts, not a heavy red
velvet fur-trimmed suit.
During those winters, I sang Jingle
Bells like most of the rest of America.
Friends, who never had ridden in a
one-horse sleigh, loved the song
too and could imagine gliding on
glistening snow with the jingling
sound of little bells fastened on the
horse’s tail and its harness.
Do you remember the words to “Jingle
Bells” and the reason for the bells
themselves? The song was written in
1850, when, of course, there were no
traffic lights. So, fast-moving sleighs
quietly moving on snow needed to be
able to alert others when nearing an
intersection; thus, the jingling of bells.
Thanks to Bing Crosby’s version
of the song released in 1943, the
“experience” of having a horse pulling
your sleigh as part of the holidays
could seem real. Anyone with a really
developed imagination might even
smell chestnuts roasting.
The song was inspired by onehorse open-sleigh annual races in
Medford, Massachusetts. Sleighs
were common vehicles moving
through winter snows. The oldest
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WINTER GARDEN MAGAZINE
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Photo by Samantha Rhodes - Focus Photo
U. S. manufacturer of sleighs, Forbes
& Sons, formed in 1840, turned out
about 1,200 sleighs a year in the
mid-1880s.
The story goes that Medford native
James Pierpont wrote the song
in the Simpson’s Tavern boarding
house; it had the town’s only piano.
(I might note here that Mr. Pierpont,
the nephew of wealthy financier John
Pierpont Morgan of New York, moved
to Florida and died in nearby Winter
Haven in 1893.)
DECEMBER 2016
Horses were also used to celebrate
the holidays throughout Europe, and
continue to play a role today there
and in other destinations around the
world. In India, presents to children
are delivered by Father Christmas
from a horse-drawn cart. In Costa
Rica, models of horses, along with
many other animals, often are featured
in the Pasito, the Christmas holiday
scene created by families for their
homes.