Christmas carols
A Christmas carol may be defined as a religious song or popular hymns that people sing at Christmas to celebrate the birth of Jesus. Christmas carols are based on Christian lyrics and relate, mostly, to the Nativity. All over the world, Christmas Carols form an integral part of the Christmas festivities. Whether one just listens to them or sings along with the church chorus, the melody and the simple lyrics will always mesmerize and get you into the festive mood. Christmas hymns and Christmas carols, like the evergreen ‘We Wish you a Merry Christmas’ or ‘Jingle Bells,’ are one facet of the holiday season that always boosts the heart and never fail to lift the spirits. While there is a large corpus of well-known Christmas songs that are all time favorites, there are many more which have slipped into anonymity and have been lost in time.
History of Christmas carols
Christmas carols were introduced into church services by St Francis of Assisi in the 12th century. The word ‘carol’ is an offshoot of the French word, caroler, which means dancing around in a circle. Carol and carols, eventually came to mean not only to dance but included music and lyrics. The happy and joyous subjects of most Christmas carols were barred in England by the Oliver Cromwell, a loyal protestant and at his behest many old Christmas carols were consequently lost for all time. Christmas carols became accepted again during the Victorian era when they once more expressed joyful and merry themes in their lyrics. As religious practices in the United States and England were closely connected to each other, the popularity of Christmas carols grew, simultaneously in both countries in the 19th century. Many Christmas traditions such as Santa Claus and reindeer are fairly new and bear no relation to Christmas carols of yore.
In different countries
- In England, Poland, Bulgaria and some other European nations, the tradition of wassailing still exists. The custom consists of a group (mainly children) of singers going from house to house singing carols and hymns in the praise of the Lord and getting money or something to eat and drink in return.
- In Australia people get together with friends and family on Christmas Eve for a candlelight singing of carols and favorite Christmas songs, a tradition that was started way back in 1930s.