My gift to you this month is to share with you visits of blog posts from Christmases past on Wednesdays when time permits. No comments needed. My desire is to add holiday cheer to your day. In December 2012, I participated in a weekly hop. You might even played along, too. You’ll find credit to that particular meme near the end. I didn’t do much rewrites on the content but since publishing it some minor things needed fixed. I hope you enjoy it!
Christmas carols bring out a reverent spirit in us all during the holiday season. Even the grouchiest person cannot help, but to be moved this one time of the year. What’s the first Christmas carol that comes to mind when you think of Christ’s birth?
Whenever I think about Jesus’s birth in that lowly stable Silent Night immediately comes to mind and how beautiful the angels must have sounded on that holy night proclaiming the arrival of God’s Son in a manger in Bethlehem. Here is a darling little angel, Jackie Evancho, singing Silent Night.
The first Christmas carols depicted a musical scene of the nativity, peace, angels, baby Jesus, and the northern star and the carols date as far back as AD 129, but many people lost their interest because the songs were in latin.
Thanks to St. Francis of Assisi in the early 1200s produced Nativity Plays in Italy telling of Jesus’ birth through song. Some sung in latin but largely they were in a language suitable for the vast audience to savor. The new carols spread to France, Spain, Germany, and other European communities.
Most, if not all the oldest Christmas carols were lost over time. What you and I are most familiar with today originated from the 19th century.
Silent Night that Jackie sings so beautifully was originally called Stille Nacht and was written by an Austrian priest, Father Joseph Mohr, in 1816. Since the 19th century début of this classic Christmas song it still is a popular favorite among many people around the world, including myself which I regard as perhaps my most beloved carol of all.
Another favored Christmas carol, O Come, All Ye Faithful origin dates back to the 13th century. The customary version we know was actually written in the late 19th century by an Englishman – Canon Frederick Oakeley from London.
In 1891, an Episcopal Bishop in Boston, Massachusetts wrote O Little Town of Bethlehem after his inspiring journey to the Holy Land one Christmas Eve.
John Henry Hopkins wrote the classic carol, We Three King of Orient Are, for a Christmas pageant at the General Theological Seminary in NYC in 1857.
The 20th century produced a new secular breed of songs with themes that included Santa, snowmen, and reindeer, like Frosty the Snowman by Jimmy Durante, Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town by Fred Astaire, Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer by Gene Autry. No doubt many you and I remember from our own childhood.
Christmas carols are synonymous with this blessed, holy season filling our hearts and souls with inexplicable joy. Do you like singing Christmas carols?
Visit Miss Jenny and the rest of the Alphabe-Thursday classroom for more homework assignments of the letter “C” and while you’re hopping around, be sure to play along with Miss Amanda in her latest edition of Thursday Two Questions.
