All they want for Christmas is their two front teeth

This novelty type of Christmas song entitled “All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth” was the very first Christmas song that I could sing with merriment especially that I heard it the first time when I was in Grade 1 with a missing front tooth (LOL).

I would like to talk about the background of this song before I will plunge into my topic because it seems like we love to listen to this Christmas song and yet we lack the background knowledge of this song which was first originally recorded by Spike Jones and His City Slickers in December of 1947 and then the song was introduced to the public in 1948 via Perry Como’s radio show by a singing group named The Satisfiers.

The song was written by Donald Yetter Gardner in 1944 while teaching music in a public school in New York. The article written by Myrna Oliver (2004) and published by New York Times claims that Gardner wrote the song for 30 minutes after he asked his second grade class what they wanted for Christmas and Gardner noticed that almost all of the students had at least one front tooth missing as they answered in a lisp (a speech impediment). In a 1995 interview, Gardner said, “I was amazed at the way that silly little song was picked up by the whole country.”

There! I have provided you with the background of that cute silly and hilarious Christmas song entitled All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth.

But this year, if the late Donald Yetter Gardnder (he died in 2004 at the age of 91) will ask me of what I want for Christmas I will be telling him that I do not need two front teeth because I have them (I do not have dentures) but I do need dentists to help me provide dentures for my female inmate-students whose couple of teeth are missing.

For 7 years now, I have been conducting a basic literacy education for female inmates who cannot read or write and some of them have missing tooth or teeth. Sometimes, it impairs their reading fluency. Some of them are conscious in articulating the sounds due to their missing tooth. Lisping is a common occurrence.

So you see, every time I hear that song, I will always remember my female-inmate students. Actually, even if it is not Christmas time, I feel like hearing the song or singing the song silently during our reading session because all I see are missing tooth or teeth. It is kinda funny and I would just laugh in silent.

I have asked them before if they need dentures. Of course, they will answer me in affirmative. But due to financial constraint they could not afford to have one. So, if there are people who would really be singing all I want for Christmas is my two front teeth it would be my female-inmate students.

My Christmas wish, therefore, is for my female-inmate students to meet a personified Santa Claus to bring them their two front teeth.