Other popular and widely sung Christmas carols are "Herbei, o ihr Gläub’gen", which is a German version of "Adeste fideles" (English: " O Come, All Ye Faithful"), Alle Jahre wieder ("Every year again"), Es ist ein Ros entsprungen (lit: "A rose has sprung up"), " Leise rieselt der Schnee" "(Silently the snow is falling)", " Tochter Zion, freue dich" (Daughter Zion, rejoice) and " Es ist für uns eine Zeit angekommen" ("Unto us a time has come"). Hark! The Herald’ – an 1840 tune from Mendelssohn. ‘ Silent Night’? Composed in 1818 by Franz Xaver Gruber to lyrics by Joseph Mohr. ‘ Good King Wenceslas’? – 1853 lyrics set to an older tune. The list goes on… Silent Night is one of the world's most popular Christmas carols. Every year it is sung in many different languages throughout the world. Its popularity is owed to its peaceful melody and its simple narration of the Christmas tale. The legend The Twelve Days of Christmas is different from other Christmas carols, because it doesn't seem to have a religious theme and it doesn't deal with the Nativity. Origin This Christmas song tells the story of the Annunciation (the announcement by the angel Gabriel that Mary would conceive a son) to the shepherds with charming simplicity. It was written in 1962 by a husband and wife as a plea for peace during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Cutolo, Cesare; Grosse, F (12 March 1866). The Victorian Christmas waltz. Melbourne: Ebenezer and David Syme – via Trove.Hebert, David; Kallio, Alexis Anja; Odendaal, Albi (2012). "NotSo Silent Night: Tradition, Transformation and Cultural Understandings of Christmas Music Events in Helsinki, Finland". Ethnomusicology Forum. 21 (3): 402–423. doi: 10.1080/17411912.2012.721525. S2CID 143629912. The lead-up to Christmas is best seen as being from the start of Advent – the period marked by the first of the four Sundays before Christmas – until Christmas Day. The end of Christmas is usually marked by the feast of Epiphany, the day in Christianity where the revelation of baby Jesus is celebrated (usually 6 January). Carols were being collected and printed widely by the 19th century. And in 1880, it’s believed the Christmas carol service was invented in Truro by an Edward White Benson, who later became the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Tolhurst, George; T, J. B. (12 March 1864). Christmas in Australia: prize song. Melbourne: Printed and published for the proprietors by Robert Stewart at the Herald Office – via Trove. The Christmas cynic says that the season is hypocritical, and that even those people who volunteer, give money, and donate food and gifts only do so once a year. The Nadala or Cançó de Nadal (in plural nadales) are a popular group of songs, usually requiring a chorus, that are song from Advent until Epiphany. Their written versions starts in the 15th century. In the past were usually being song by shepherds and their families in market squares and in front of churches. The ghostly visitors are not of the Christian kind, but ghost stories were popular in Victorian England. Each ghost is very distinctive in appearance and manner. Charles Oakley’s text found its appeal when paired with a rousing tune by Martin Shaw called Little Conard. The hymn tells the story of the Advent message of the coming of the Christ Child spreading to all four corners of the globe.Words: Attributed to Rev. Richard Hutchins Tune: various inc. Jeremiah Ingalls, Elizabeth Poston and John Rutter This Welsh carol starts with the exhortation to ‘come together and cheer as one, Hallelujah!’ Versions have been released by several well known Welsh artists including Bryn Terfel and Iestyn Jones. Christopher Morris, musician – obituary". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 11 January 2022 . Retrieved 4 October 2016.

One thing you will find with the book is that each ghost has one or two more scenes that they show Scrooge. It seems like adapters of the book have generally agreed on which stories to leave out as I don't think I was familiar with any of the "new" tales. Summers, Joseph (12 March 2018). An Australian Christmas carol, for friends all over the globe. Perth: S. T. Upham – via Trove. This carol also began life as a poem, written in 1849 by Edmund Hamilton Sears, a Unitarian parish minister and author. The music was composd by American musician Richard Storrs Willis in 1850. O Little Town of Bethlehem

The real story

The publication of Christmas music books in the 19th century helped to widen the popular appeal of carols. " God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen", " The First Noel", " I Saw Three Ships" and " Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" appear in English antiquarian William Sandys' 1833 collection Christmas Carols, Ancient and Modern. [8] Composers such as Arthur Sullivan helped to repopularise the carol, and it is this period that gave rise to such favourites as " Good King Wenceslas" and " It Came Upon the Midnight Clear", a New England carol written by Edmund H. Sears and Richard S. Willis. The publication in 1871 of Christmas Carols, New and Old by Henry Ramsden Bramley and Sir John Stainer was a significant contribution to a revival of carols in Victorian Britain. In 1916, Charles Lewis Hutchins published Carols Old and Carols New, a scholarly collection which suffered from a short print run and is consequently rarely available today. The Oxford Book of Carols, first published in 1928 by Oxford University Press (OUP), was a notably successful collection; edited by the British composers Martin Shaw and Ralph Vaughan Williams, along with clergyman and author Percy Dearmer, it became a widely used source of carols in among choirs and church congregations in Britain and remains in print today. [9] [10] You probably already know this, but A Christmas Carol tells the tale of an aging miser named Ebenezer Scrooge. He works in a counting-house with his poor, put-upon clerk Bob Cratchit. Once upon a time, Scrooge had a partner, Jacob Marley, but when the novella opens, Marley has been dead seven years, though Scrooge seems barely to notice. On Christmas Eve that year, the church organ was broken and it could not be fixed until the snow melted in the spring. Joseph was not disheartened and was determined that there would be music that Christmas. He remembered a simple poem he had written two years earlier and thought if only he could find an alternative instrument and suitable melody they could sing it in church. He asked his church organist, a man named Franz Gruber, to look at the poem and see what he could do. Fizzing with energy and festive cheer, The Christmas Carrollsis a heart-warming must-read for the Christmas period. Mel's writing sparkles like the star on top of a Christmas Tree.' - Jennifer Bell, author of The Uncommoners trilogy

This popular carol was written by Canon Michael Perry while he was a student at Oak Hill Theological College. He was one of the country's leading contemporary hymn writers. He died in 1996. See Amid the Winter's Snow Christmas carols in predominantly Catholic Philippines exhibit the influence of indigenous, Hispanic and American musical traditions, reflecting the country's complex history. Carollers ( Tagalog: Namamaskô) begin wassailing in November, with mostly children and young adults participating in the custom. This carol began life as the French poem Minuit, chrétiens written by Placide Cappeau in 1847 and was translated into English by John Sullivan Dwight. The music was composed by Adolphe-Charles Adam, who also wrote the ballet Giselle. It Came Upon a Midnight Clear The Little Drummer Boy’ was originally known as The Carol of the Drum, and the text is based on an old Czech carol. It was written by American classical music composer and teacher Katherine Kennicott Davis in 1940. It was recorded by Bing Crosby and David Bowie in 1977, with the new addition of the ‘Peace On Earth’ countermelody which has since become an accepted part of the song.

As Scrooge explores what each of the ghosts has to show him, I loved how the ghosts use Scrooge’s own words against him. A Christmas Carol is a great reminder to bring Christmas cheer. When talking about Scrooge, so many people choose to go positive and wish him a Merry Christmas. Who can we show kindness to this holiday season? Carols remained mainly unsung, especially in churches, until Victorian times, when two men called William Sandys and Davis Gilbert collected lots of old Christmas music from villages in England. Carols were stilling being sung as folk songs in places like pubs but they often weren't thought of as 'proper' or 'nice' songs by the middle or upper classes. (Singing carols in pubs still happens today and there's some very famous carol singing in pubs in the north of England, especially in North Derbyshire and South Yorkshire.)