Some of my fondest memories as a child I have been around Christmastime. For me Christmas more than any other type of the year, was notably different; not so much because of the toys and stuff which admittedly, I was always excited about; but there was something very different about it. It was as if the entire atmosphere changed. I remember traveling in the bus with my mom to visit my aunt while the sound of Christmas music filled the air. I always thought there was something very very different about Christmas music, and about Christmas carols in particular. They always seem to have the knack to touch you where it mattered most – the heart of your being.

I went to an Anglican school as a child, and one of the things I remember very clearly about Christmas is at that time of the year, all the blackboards in teh school were put aside, and these long sheets with Christmas carols were handed out to the entire school. It was Christmas carols sing-along time, with Ms. Roach the music teacher, playing the piano at the front of the school. I did not understand many of the Christmas carols that we sang; after all, this was between the ages of 7 to 11. I did not understand what “Gloria, in excelsis Deo!” meant. Neither did I understand what “Ding Dong Merrily on High” meant and many of the other carols. All I knew is that I love to sing those songs. Can you imagine a school of about 350 boys singing Joy To The World, Ding Dong Merrily On High, or Angels We Have Heard On High? Can you imagine how that sounded? This was in an era — not so long ago might I add — when boys were not afraid to sing. These were truly joyous times for us all. As I looked around at some of my other classmates I recognized that mine were not the only eyes lit up around at this time of year.

So what exactly are Christmas carols? Christmas carols help us to understand what Christmas is all about and were derived from the French word “Carroller” meaning to dance in circles. Now let us ponder on this for a little while. I remember, and I’m sure that you have as well, seeing movies with people dancing around in circles. Most of them would normally have someone playing a violin or a fiddle, while all else danced around. Dancing around connotes a great joy. In the context of Christmas carols, what greater joy have we to celebrate than God loving us to such an extent, that he left heaven, and came down to earth to be one with us and to save us all from eternal damnation. There is absolutely nothing that is more significant to ouor human existance than this; nothing that is, until we get to the part where God Himself actuslly lays down his life for us sinful man.

The very first Christmas carols were just music without words. Words were added at a later date, creating the traditional Christmas carols that we know today. In the early years of Christmas carols, it was not allowed within the sacred sacrifice of the holy Eucharist. However, despite this, the common folk who resided in the countryside continued the custom of carolling. There were times when the watchmen who would guard the city walls at nights would pass time by singing carols and would sometimes even sing to passersby. In 1223, St. Francis of Assisi is believed to be the first to introduce carols into the church, writing a beautiful hymn called “Psalmus in Nativitate”, and is also credited for creating the first nativity scene.

As mentioned earlier, Christmas carols were meant to teach us what is Christmas all about, and it’s role in salvation’s history. They were meant to be about a definitive time in human history when God intervened. If you were to go back through time starting from when the first Christmas Carol was written and sung, and coming all the way to all present time, you will realize that they were all about the birth of Jesus Christ. But something went wrong. The secular world in recognizing that Christmas had become a very popular season, a very popular time of year, saw the potential to earn large sums of income from sales. This brought about the commercialization of Christmas. It was from this point that things started to change. There was one Christmas sale after another with all the merchants trying to outdo each other, each of them jostling to get your hard earned cash. As that process continued on and on, year after year, the real reason of the season, that is the birth of Jesus Christ, got lost. This may have been a deliberate act by merchants for obvious reasons. Eventually Christmas greetings changed from Merry Christmas to happy holidays or Merry Xmas or Xmas greetings and all the other demeaning terms that are used. While all of this was happening, the face of Christmas music was changing. They were no longer about the birth of Jesus Christ. The movement away from the true meaning of the season at times was so subtle that it was hard to recognize. We are now at a point where people sing all kinds of rubbish and purport them to be Christmas music. For example, what does, “last Christmas I gave you my heart. The very next day you gave it away,” or, “all I want for Christmas is you” have to do with the birthday of Jesus Christ? Yet even so the masses appear to be moving towards the secularization of Christmas and the secular Christmas music, none will deny that the tradition of Christmas carols, even though they are hundreds of years old, they still bring a great deal of joy and gladness to our hearts; much more, indeed it’s so much more than any of these secular Christmas music ever can. At the end of the day, what the human heart really longs for, the secular world can never provide. What the human heart longs from can only come from the Heart of our GOD – JESUS CHRIST HIS SON.

[simpleazon-image align=”right” asin=”B00006BTCN” locale=”us” height=”355″ src=”http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51AU9k4iSUL._SL160_.jpg” width=”360″]Today thank GOD, you will still find families gathering around the old piano, carolers stopping by your front door, and church choirs singing loud and clear what is Christmas all about. In the life of a Christian, more so Catholic, caroling is just as important as witnessing to the gospel of Jesus Christ, because caroling all about joyfully proclaiming the birth of Jesus Christ. It is all about joyfully proclaiming to all and for all to hear, the joyous news — hallelujah! — that God did not give up on us, and that he sent His SON down to earth to be one with us, and then to lay down his life for us so that we would not be eternally lost. Now I don’t know about you, but I hate the thought of being lost. Not too long ago I was driving somewhere in New Jersey with my sister and my brother-in-law, and he missed the turnoff on one of the free ways. We all worried for a while, until he found the way back. When he got back into famaliar territory, I said to myself, “thank you Lord!”

True Christmas carols are about proclaiming the truth, a truth that our whole world needs to know, a truth that is so powerful that one Christmas it resulted in warring sides laying down their arms and singing Christmas carols while they remained in their dugouts. Real Christmas carols are not about heartbreak, but rather about the heart of God that is so magnanimous, that HE, Emmanuel, God with us, came to be with you, came to be with me, to take us by the hand and lead us away from the danger of eternal damnation to the safety of eternal life.

Finally, Christmas is one of those very beautiful gifts, a priceless treasure given to us by God, that has been stolen by the enemy. As Catholics and Christians, we owe it to ourselves, to the generations that come after us, and most of all to our God, to reclaim this most beautiful season by the way we live it and by the way we celebrate it. An excellent place to start is with traditional Christmas carols. What a beautiful thing it would be for Catholic and Christian families and homes to joyfully sing Christmas carols together as a form of family tradition. My goodness! What a powerful thing that would be. What a powerful impact this simple witness will have on the lives of our children. What a powerful testimony the act of caroling upheld as a Christmas tradition will have on the world. These Christmas carols have been around for hundreds of years and hopefully, this tradition will stay in our hearts forever and be passed on to the generations to come . Merry Christmas to you all!