All I want for Christmas is a Hippo

I want a hippopotamus for Christmas*

Only a hippopotamus will do


Don't want a doll, no dinky Tinker Toy
I want a hippopotamus to play with and enjoy

I want a hippopotamus for Christmas

I don't think Santa Claus will mind, do you?


He won't have to use our dirty chimney flue
Just bring him through the front door,
that's the easy thing to do...

In my "Top 10 Best Christmas Gifts of All Time" is Helga the Hippo. She appeared in my stocking last year, after I sang this song apparently one too many times. I love the story about the song's connection to the Oklahoma City Zoo.
 
The song was written in 1950, and in 1953 was picked up by a promoter trying to raise funds for a hippo for the OKC Zoo. An Oklahoma gal, Gayle Peevey, recorded the song, and baby hippo Matilda came to live at the zoo. I've met Matilda. She wouldn't fit on my Christmas tree. Or in my living room, for that matter. You can listen to a recording of The Hippo Song here.

 


Helga has become a treasured, ginormously important member of our family, and the source of a hilarious hippo tradition. Whoever finds Helga hides her for the next person. She's been in the flour bin, the sugar jar, under cushions, inside pillow cases, in book bags, in the shower (she almost got whacked on that one, I thought she was a rat), to name just a few. 

 


We might go for weeks without seeing Helga, and then she'll pop up, only to go undercover once more a few moments later. She's kind of the secret agent of pachyderm humor. Help, we've been hippo-tized

*Song written by John Rox, 1950.