This could be a tricky carol to get a whole group to be able to sing. The video is below if you’ve never heard it or need a refresher to try singing the lyrics.

I got the idea for this song from the only thing I can think of to rhyme with hippopotamus, which was hypothalamus, a portion of the brain that contains a number of small nuclei with a variety of functions. Then I just had to make sure a few other things “made sense”, like how you don’t bring a hypothalamus through the door (last line, second verse or original lyrics), and I had my song.

The topic of this carol spoof is insensitive, I know, to those with hypothalamus disorders, but you can’t live life never insulting anybody. It’s not like I’m choosing to do this as part of a caroling set at a hospital or something, you know! So let’s go, queue the brass band needed and let’s sing!

My other Christmas carol parody lyrics:

• Jingle Bells for Tiger Woods
• 12 Days of (Vietnamese) Christmas
• Noisy Night
• Bad Christmas
• Have Yourself a Bummer Little Christmas

I want a hypothalamus for Christmas

Only a hypothalamus will do

Don’t want no doll, nor Cranium nor toy

I want a hypothalamus that works well to enjoy

.

I want a hypothalamus for Christmas

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

He won’t have to put it in with paper glue

Just ask a neurosurgeon, that’s the easy thing to do

.

I can see me now on Christmas morning, stomping down the stairs

Bitchy, grumpy but surprised when I open up my eyes

To see a hypo-thala-mus right there

.

I want a hypothalamus for Christmas

Only a hypothalamus will do

No frontal lobes, left/right thalamuses

I only like hypothalamuses

And hypothalamuses like me too!

.

Mom says the hypo, would mess me up but then

Teacher says a hypo controls my circadian

.

There’s lots of room for it in my half-empty brain

I’d house it there, protect it there, and be the same again

I can see me now on Christmas morning, stomping down the stairs

Bitchy, grumpy but surprised when I open up my eyes

To see a hypo-thala-mus right there

.

I want a hypothalamus for Christmas

Only a hypothalamus will do

No frontal lobes, left/right thalamuses

I only like hypothalamuses

And hypothalamuses like me too!