(WHTM) – Whether you believe Christmas music is meant to be played before Thanksgiving or after Thanksgiving, one thing is true. “Jingle Bells” was originally written as a Thanksgiving song.

“Jingle Bells” was written by James Lord Pierpont and published in 1857.

According to History, Jingle Bells wasn’t even the song’s original name, it was “One Horse Open Sleigh.”

Horse-drawn sleigh ride through winter landscape.
(Getty Images)

According to Southern Living, Jingle Bells would first be performed in a church by a Sunday school class.

Where Pierpont wrote the song isn’t clear, but two places claim that he wrote it in their city: Medford, Massachusetts; and Savannah, Georgia.

The song doesn’t mention Christmas at all, according to the Washington Post – the song was inspired by sleigh races that were popular in the 1800s. This could explain why Medford claimed the song as the sleigh races took place in Massachusetts and not Georgia.

According to Southern Living, the reason the song became associated with Christmas is because the children performed the song again at Christmastime.

But according to CNN, the reason Jingle Bells is associated with Christmas is because it was performed on Washington Street in Boston on Sep. 15, 1857.

Jingle Bells would be recorded and released by many artists and groups, but according to Billboard, these are the ten best versions of the song:

According to History, the following was reported to Mission Control by Gemini 6, “We have an object, looks like a satellite going from north to south, up in a polar orbit. He’s in a very low trajectory traveling from north to south and has a very high climbing ratio. It looks like it might even be a very low. Looks like he might be going to reenter soon. Stand by one … You might just let me try to pick up that thing.”

The report stunned Mission Control, but suddenly, Jingle Bells started playing as one of the astronauts played the harmonica and another had small sleigh bells.

This report came in nine days before Christmas in 1965.