At my church’s Christmas Eve service, I learned that “Do You Hear What I Hear” was written as a plea for peace during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962.

Noel Regney and Gloria Shayne Baker (married at the time) were inspired to write the lyrics ‘Said the night wind to the little lamb, ‘Do you see what I see?’ and ‘Pray for peace, people everywhere,’ after watching babies being pushed in strollers on the sidewalks of New York City.

Years later, in an interview, Baker stated that neither she nor Regney could personally perform the entire song at the time they wrote it because of the emotions surrounding the Cuban Missile Crisis. “Our little song broke us up,” she said. “You must realize there was a threat of nuclear war at the time.”

However, it was Bing Crosby who made the song a worldwide smash hit when he released his own version of it in 1963, a week after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.

Interesting to know the story behind the songs, isn’t it?

We have so much to be grateful for in our homes and in our country, and yesterday’s near-disaster in the Northwest plane is a reminder to take nothing for granted.

So on this day after Christmas, when the tree is starting to lose all its needles and you can’t eat one more bite of rich food and the “Day After Christmas Letdown” settles in…remember that a Child has been born. And He is with us, still.

P.S. Pardon this sidenote of happy news…but I wanted to share it with my special bleaders. CBD recommends “The Choice” as a top pick of fiction! See for yourself!