There’s so much music written and published just for the Christmas season, but I bet you haven’t seen any of these pieces before.

Here’s some pretty normal fare, from 1887.

Notice Santa using his glasses to check his list. (Click on the image above to see it in Acumen and zoom in even more.)

Of course, there are also things a bit out of the ordinary.

From 1866, a polka.

(Where’s Lawrence Welk when you need him?)

This last one is a whole cantata, but it’s nothing like you’d see in church!

It was only 1917 when this was published, but they were already joking about the world changing too fast.

Such singing and ringing, Such accidents bringing,
These new fangled doings are not my kind of ways…
Such hurry and scurry, And no end of worry,
It never was so in our grandfathers’ days.

But no wonder they were worried — they wanted Santa to get an “auto-sleigh”!

These pieces of sheet music, and many more, are from The Wade Hall Collection of Southern History and Culture.