♥♪♫ Gene Autry Cover ~♥~ Up On The House Top ♫♪♥

I hope you enjoy my rendition of this fun Christmas song written by Benjamin Hanby. "Up on the House Top" is a Christmas song written by Benjamin Hanby in 1864 in the town of New Paris, Ohio. It has been recorded by a multitude of singers, among the most notable Gene Autry, who is also known for his version of the classic "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer". According to William Studwell in The Christmas Carol Reader, "Up on the House Top" was the second-oldest secular Christmas song, outdone only by "Jingle Bells", which was written in 1857 (although the latter was originally intended as a Thanksgiving song). It is also considered the first Yuletide song to focus primarily on Santa Claus. In fact, according to Readers Digest Merry Christmas Song Book Hanby was the first to offer up the idea that Santa and his sleigh land on the roof of homes. Benjamin Russell Hanby was born in 1833 near Rushville, Ohio, the son of a minister involved with the Underground Railroad. During his short life he wrote some 80 songs before dying of tuberculosis in 1867. Other than "Up on the House Top" his best-known song is "Darling Nelly Gray".