Are You Ready to Play a Christmas Song? Learn to play Jingle Bells with visual aids. This easy to read Christmas piece is a favourite amongst all students. Has it been overdone? Well, considering it was written in the autumn of 1857 under the title “One Horse Open Sleigh,” by James Lord Pierpont (1822-1893) one can say…perhaps. But…did you know it wasn’t originally meant to be a Christmas piece? James Lord Pierpont originally wrote it for a local Sunday school event on Thanksgiving Day in Savannah, Georgia. Pierpont wrote it to describe what teenage boys like to do…race and scare girls. The song is about boys getting the fastest horse or sleigh (the cutter or one horse open sleigh) and racing each other. The tune was so catchy that it was soon adopted by Christmas Carollers. The third verse is rarely sung, but it goes like this:Now the ground is white…Go it while you’re young. Take the girls tonight… and sing this sleighing song. Just get a bob tailed bay…Two forty as his speed. Hitch him to an open sleigh…And crack, you’ll take the lead.