In putting together yesterday’s broadcast of “Sweetness and Light,” I looked into the origins of the Christmas song “Winter Wonderland,” and I learned a few things.

First of all, the song joins the pantheon of great American Christmas songs composed by Jews (see Sammy Cahn, Jay Livingston, Johnny Marks, Mel Tormé, and of course Irving Berlin).

Second, it was written in my home state of Pennsylvania within an hour of where I grew up. The lyricist, Richard Bernhard Smith (Dick Smith), was born in Honesdale, PA, 32 miles northeast of Scranton.

Third, Smith wrote the words while being treated for tuberculosis in Scranton’s West Mountain Sanitarium. His sister claimed he was inspired by the sight of Honesdale’s Central Park covered in snow. (Perhaps that should be third and fourth? I had better stop counting.)

Felix Bernard, who wrote the music, was born in Brooklyn, into a Jewish family named Bernardt. Smith was an Episcopalian. So in this case, the Christmas tune was the product of something of a mixed marriage.

The first recording was made in 1934 by Richard Himber and his Hotel Ritz-Carlton Orchestra, as kind of an afterthought, on time left over from another session. Among the musicians in the orchestra was Artie Shaw. But it was Guy Lombardo who made it into one of the year’s biggest hits. The song, of course, went on to be covered countless times.

Sadly, Smith, whose illness was diagnosed in 1931, died on September 29, 1935 – his 34th birthday – a poignant footnote to this timeless fantasy of winter fun and romance.

Lombardo’s nationwide broadcasts were New Year’s Eve staples for nearly 50 years, originating first from New York City’s Roosevelt Hotel and later the Waldorf Astoria. I remember watching him on television in his twilight years with my grandparents when I was child growing up in the 1970s. Following Lombardo’s death in 1977, Dick Clark’s “New Year’s Rockin’ Eve,” first broadcast in 1972 – and which unquestionably appealed to a younger crowd – sounded the death knell for a more elegant era.

The first recording, with Himber at the Ritz-Carlton, with Joey Nash vocal

Lombardo and His Royal Canadians in 1934:

Lombardo 1946 remake, with the Andrews Sisters