i luv christmas carols

UPDATED: with links

oh sorry i’m still in the mood of talking about christmas carols, but this time nothing to do with the govt. but giving my personal view.

don’t you all just love christmas carols? do you have any favourites? i guess too many to pick favourites? me too. but i guess i can pick out several which i like. first, let’s talk about ‘churchy’ hymns. the most popular ones i guess have to be silent night, o come all ye faithful and joy to the world. in church, every christmas, these 3 hymns will sure be heard. well almost all churches i see will pick joy to the world as the recessional hymn during mass/service. that is because this song is so lively and meaningful too.

joy to the world! the lord has come!
let earth receive her king!
let every heart prepare him room.
and heaven and nature sing
and heaven and nature sing
and heaven, and heaven and nature sing!

that is the first verse of joy to the world. isn’t it a beautiful meaningful hymn? click on the link and listen to it and you’ll notice it is a fast, lively number.

of course there are also other nice meaningful hymns around like the 2 i mentioned above. then there is o holy night which require one to have a high soprano voice. this reminds me. i love angels we have heard on high too esp. when singing the chorus: glooo…oooo…. ria…. in excelsis deo.

if you want the lyrics of christmas hymns/carols, just google for it and you’ll get lots of hits, like this one, with lyrics and midi played automatically, or this one and and this one wiht both lyrics and midi too. there is also a 3-in-1 one i found with lyrics, midi and mp3!

then there is this site with lyrics, which also tell the origin of carols. apparently christmas carols were introduced to church services by st francis of assisi in the 12th century, and the word “carol” is derived from the french word caroller and the interpretation of which means dancing around in a circle. carols eventually came to mean not only to dance but also included the music.

now as for secular christmas carols, i seems to like those that have repetition words in it. (ha. like a kid eh). you know, like:

deck the halls
deck the hall with boughs of holly
fa la la la la la la la
tis’ the season to be jolly
fa la la la la la la la

little drummer boy
come they told me, pa ram pum pum
a newborn king to see pa ram pum pum
rum pum pum rum pum pum

frosty the snowman
thumpity thump thump, thumpity thump thump
look at frosty go
thumpity thump thump, thumpity thump thump
over the hills of snow.

notice the repeated words? i just love singing them. oh and one other nice lively carol is rudolph the red nosed reindeer. i always remember one of our ex bishop, who is now a retired archbishop of singapore, archbishop gregory yong, in his christmas homily, use this song to tell us that there is something for us to learn in the song (moral).

of course the 12 days of christmas is nice too. lots of people had come up with different version of this carol. now i wonder if someone can come up with something like ‘the 12 days of blogging’. 🙂 or during the 12 days of christmas, what happens in the blogging world. viewtru? tvsmith?