We Wish You a Merry Christmas

[3] His composition was published by Oxford University Press the same year under the title "A Merry Christmas: West Country traditional song".

[10] The song is absent from the collections of West-countrymen Davies Gilbert (1822 and 1823)[18] and William Sandys (1833),[19] as well as from the great anthologies of Sylvester (1861)[20] and Husk (1864),[21] and The Oxford Book of Carols (1928).

In the comprehensive New Oxford Book of Carols (1992), editors Hugh Keyte and Andrew Parrott describe it as "English traditional" and "[t]he remnant of an envoie much used by wassailers and other luck visitors"; no source or date is given.

An example is given in the short story The Christmas Mummers (1858) by Charlotte Yonge: When at last they were all ready, off they marched, with all the little boys and girls running behind them; and went straight to Farmer Buller’s door, where they knew they should find a welcome.

They all stood in a row, and began to sing as loud as they were able:I wish you a merry Christmas And a happy New Year, A pantryful of good roast-beef, And barrels full of beer.