The Origins Behind Your Favorite Christmas Songs

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(CBS DETROIT) - If you ever wondered the origin of your favorite Christmas music, a lot of tunes come from unlikely places.

For example, 'Santa Claus' is coming to town was written on an envelope on a subway.

When Donald Gardner asked a group of second-graders to complete the sentence - all i want for Christmas is, it wasn't their specific responses to the prompt, but their lisps from not having teeth which inspired the song: All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth.

Walter Kent and James Gannon's song - I'll be home for Christmas - captured the mood of homesick Americans in 1943.

Especially the soldiers who were in the depths of World War II.

Finally - Let It Snow is probably what the writer and composer wanted while writing the song in July of 1945, that's when they wrote this song, in the middle of heat wave in Hollywood.