"I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" is a Christmas carol based on the 1863 poem "Christmas Bells" by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The song tells of the narrator's despair, upon hearing Christmas bells during the American Civil War, that "hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth, good will to men". The carol concludes with the bells carrying renewed hope for peace among men.

Longfellow wrote the poem on Christmas Day in 1863. "Christmas Bells" was first published in February 1865, in Our Young Folks, a juvenile magazine published by Ticknor and Fields. References to the Civil War are prevalent in some of the verses that are not commonly sung. “Christmas Bells”—the basis for the popular Christmas carol.

The Christmas stories of the famous authors: Gilbert Keith Chesterton - A Christmas Carol, Lucy Maud Montgomery - A Christmas Inspiration, A Christmas Mistake, Christmas at Red Butte, Lyman Frank Baum -A Kidnapped Santa Claus, Mark Twain - A Letter from Santa Claus, Louisa May Alcott - A Merry Christmas, Leo Tolstoy - A Russian Christmas Party, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - Christmas Bells, Nikolai Gogol - Christmas Eve, William Dean Howells - Christmas Everyday, Joseph Rudyard Kipling - Christmas in India, Lyman Frank Baum - Little Bun Rabbit, Elizabeth Harrison - Little Gretchen and the Wooden Shoe, John Milton - On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity, Charles Dickens - The Chimes, Nathaniel Hawthorne -The Christmas Banquet, Hans Christian Andersen - The Fir Tree, Selma Lagerlöf - The Holy Night, Hans Christian Andersen - The Little Match Girl, Clement Moore - The Night Before Christmas, Henry van Dyke - The Other Wise Man, William Dean Howells - The Pony Engine and the Pacific Express, Beatrix Potter - The Tailor of Gloucester, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - The Three Kings, Anton Chehov - Vanka.

• Narrator: Trevor O'Hare
• Listening Length: 1 minute 29 seconds