Even though my parents are the ones who come over the rivers and through woods to their grandchildren’s house every year, I still find myself singing Lydia Maria Child’s poem to myself every year about this time.
Not all the verses—off the top of my head, I knew the ones that were sung at the end of A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, just before Snoopy and Woodstock have their dinner and cut into that enormous pie.*
I had no idea that this thing goes on for twelve verses. Or had such a clunky official title.**
But it ends in a celebration of pie,***so who really cares?
The New-England Boy’s Song about Thanksgiving Day
(Lydia Marie Child)
Over the river, and through the wood,
To grandfather’s house we go;
The horse knows the way,
To carry the sleigh,
Through the white and drifted snow.
Over the river, and through the wood,
To grandfather’s house away!
We would not stop
For doll or top,
For ’tis Thanksgiving day.
Over the river, and through the wood,
Oh, how the wind does blow!
It stings the toes,
And bites the nose,
As over the ground we go.
Over the river, and through the wood,
With a clear blue winter sky,
The dogs do bark,
And children hark,
As we go jingling by.
Over the river, and through the wood,
To have a first-rate play—
Hear the bells ring
Ting a ling ding,
Hurra for Thanksgiving day!
Over the river, and through the wood—
No matter for winds that blow;
Or if we get
The sleigh upset,
Into a bank of snow.
Over the river, and through the wood,
To see little John and Ann;
We will kiss them all,
And play snow-ball,
And stay as long as we can.
Over the river, and through the wood,
Trot fast, my dapple grey!
Spring over the ground,
Like a hunting hound,
For ‘t is Thanksgiving day!
Over the river, and through the wood,
And straight through the barn-yard gate;
We seem to go
Extremely slow,
It is so hard to wait.
Over the river, and through the wood,
Old Jowler hears our bells;
He shakes his pow,
With a loud bow wow,
And thus the news he tells.
Over the river, and through the wood—
When grandmother sees us come,
She will say, Oh dear,
The children are here,
Bring a pie for every one.
Over the river, and through the wood—
Now grandmother’s cap I spy!
Hurra for the fun!
Is the pudding done?
Hurra for the pumpkin pie!
Have A Wonderful Pie Thanksgiving Day!
(if tomorrow is just another day to you, have pie, anyway—
one should never pass up an opportunity to celebrate pie!)
___________________
*Not to digress, but am I the only one who wonders if there’s a correlation between that pie and the disappearance of the Great Pumpkin? I mean, clearly Woodstock is okay with quasi-cannibalism, so…
**Or that it’s author was such an amazing woman, who totally deserves to be remembered for much more than a single poem, not that anyone remembers she wrote it in the first place. The Poetry Foundation has a biography. Read it—it’s fascinating!
***And possibly an earworm that will last until “Let It Snow” takes malicious hold of your psyche. Does anyone else sing that song as sarcastically as possible? ‘Cause even Dean Martin can’t save that song for me. Ugh.
Earful of Cider 
Wow, l didn’t know Over the River had that many verses. Mr Short, Dark …& Funny’s band saves Let it Snow for me…and their version of We Three Cabs is da bomb.