December 14 - carolled out?

We had our church coffee morning carol service this morning using some very old NCH carol sheets that the church have probably been using since the war. In between the carols we had a soloist and I read out of Brian Bilston’s new compilation of his Christmas poems. 

I’ve been reading the latest English Heritage newsletter in which it suggests we might be doing our carols wrong. For a start they should be sung from Christmas Day to Candlemas not before Christmas Day, then we should dance to them! The origin of the word carol is the French 'carole', a sung round dance. Many of the earliest carols were actually written by medieval monks and were ring dances where everybody linked hands in a circle and sang the song whilst dancing. I remember my wonderful minister as a teenager at our chapel Geoffrey Hawkridge who would make us dance round the communion table to Good Christian men rejoice on Christmas morning! 

Then the article suggests where we sing them is wrong too. They were sung in ale houses and door-to-door and while enjoying Christmas hospitality in the hall of a great household! Although often religious in content, carols were not part fully integrated into church services until the late Victorian era. The Sheffield carols were on local news tonight, carols in pubs, and I know there was a carol evening in the splendour of Tanfield Lodge in their hall last week.

We love to sing carols. We sing some of the mightiest theology in them. Look at Hark the herald angels sing and you’ll discover Charles Wesley overwhelmed with the concept of incarnation. 

I don’t know how many carols I sing in this season. I sing them at home to myself! This is a sign I’ve lost it! I remember one Sunday after Christmas and my congregation saying I’d picked some “unusual” carols. I said “these are the ones I’ve not sung yet!” 

I’ll keep singing them for now til I get fed up. I like the C of E material for the Christmas season i.e 25 December onwards. It’s called “follow the star - sing the song.” You might like to read the songs in the Christmas story: the Magnificat, the Benedictus, the angels song to the shepherds. Singing is good for you. So let’s sing our faith. Remember the word of the Psalmist in the context of this season: “O sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvellous things.”