#6 most-searched carol in the US · 1862
Deck the Halls: the story behind the carol
Also known as Nos Galan
🧒 Easy for kids🏡 Great for caroling🎤 Everyone knows it
- Words
- Thomas Oliphant (1862)
- Music
- Welsh traditional, "Nos Galan" (16th century)
- From
- Wales; English words from Scotland
- Type
- Secular / folk
The story behind “Deck the Halls”
The tune is a Welsh New Year's Eve song, "Nos Galan", going back to the 1500s. The "fa la la" lines were where the harp played between sung lines.
The Scottish musician Thomas Oliphant wrote the English words in 1862 — and his first version was a drinking song about draining the barrel. The family-friendly verses we sing now appeared later in American songbooks.
More carols like this
- Silent Night1818 · Oberndorf, Austria
- Jingle Bells1857 · Boston, Massachusetts
- Joy to the World1719 · England; tune from Boston
- Hark! The Herald Angels Sing1739 · England
- We Wish You a Merry Christmas1935 · West of England
- O Come, All Ye Faithful1743 · England / France (Latin hymn)
History retold from the carol's Wikipedia article and its sources; checked 2026-09-30.