Dave Clark / Don Koch

Recorded by 4Him. It was back in 1993 when the group 4HIM was recording their first-ever Christmas project which turned out to be one of the all-time classic Christmas records in my opinion. Don Koch and I were sitting in our small writer’s room on the third floor of the old Benson Company talking about ideas and this song was the result of that conversation. One of the common questions people ask a songwriter is whether or not we know a song is a hit when we first write it. As for me, I honestly wish I did, but that’s not always the case. To show you just how wrong I can be, even though this was the same record that had the very first cut of our song, Strange Way to Save the World, I honestly felt like this would eventually be the bigger song. The first verse had lines like:

Manger scenes and mistletoe

Christmas cards from friends we know

They'll disappear like melted snow

At least for another year

Clearly, (and thankfully) Strange Way turned out to be the bigger song. I would add that of all the songs we were blessed to write for 4HIM through the years, this was the only cut ever that had to grow on me when I first heard it. I always thought Don’s original demo, which was significantly slower, more accurately captured the pensiveness of the words. One more little trivia note worth adding is that this song was one of only three 4HIM cuts I was a part through the years that Mark Harris was not co-writer on. Moral of the story is… If Mark had written this with us, it might have been a whole lot bigger song.

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https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/hold-on-to-christmas/299672579?i=299672617