I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas

Okay. So, obviously, my taste in Christmas music is not totally refined. I do know that you’re probably going, “Really? “In the Bleak Midwinter” to this?”

But I just love this song. It’s so adorable. It was sung by a 10-year-old little girl, and I think her voice and the words and the melody so perfectly capture the frank childhood belief that anything is possible. I particularly love these lines: “I want a hippopotamus for Christmas / I don’t think Santa Claus will mind, do you? / He won’t have to use a dirty chimney flue / just bring him through the front door that’s the easy thing to do.” It’s so delightfully practical while still at the same time utterly fanciful. I also love how the little girl’s mom tries to worm her way out of telling her daughter that she can’t have a hippo by telling her that the hippo would eat her, and the girl counters that “teacher says the hippo is a vegetarian!” Oh my gosh, it kills me. So cute.

 I discovered this song in high school and loved it immediately, and my family lets out a collective groan every Christmas as I dance around singing this song. Now that I have children of my own I love it even more. Sienna has just mastered all the words, and she and I will dance around the living room singing this song. I hope you love it as much as I do! (Don’t worry, the next song will be much, much less silly.)