How a broken organ inspired our most-loved Christmas carol

C'mere, there's more from the Post's funniest columnist

- 

'm afraid I'm going to have to relay some sad news readers.

Come closer... the fairy who sits on top of my Christmas tree is retiring this year. Yes, she wants to step down while she's still at the top! Did I take you to the edge with that one?

Let me ask you a festive question. Have you ever wondered how some of the Christmas carols we sing every year came about?

Well, let me tell you about one in particular.

This story takes place in a village called Oberndorf in Austria, just north of Salzburg on the border between Austria and Germany, on a snowy Christmas Eve night in the year 1818.

While preparing for midnight Mass at the aptly-named St Nicholas Church, Father Joseph Mohr discovered he could not get a sound from the church organ, no matter how hard he pumped the pedals.

Looking for divine inspiration, he remembered a poem he'd written over a year before, after visiting a poor family in his parish to bless their child.

The image of a young mother holding her infant wrapped snugly against the winter cold had captured Father Joseph's imagination and reminded him of another birth almost 2,000 years earlier.