| Christmas Carols are sung mostly during the | | | | What Child is This - with words written to |
| holiday season but most of us find ourselves | | | | the melody Greensleeves. It originated in |
| humming them periodically during the course | | | | Elizabethan times and is mentioned by |
| of the year. They come out of our mouths | | | | Shakespeare in "The Merry Wives of Windsor" |
| mindlessly and we rarely stop and wonder | | | | when it is played as traitors are hanged. |
| where they came from. Most revolve around the | | | | |
| birth of Christ but the variety, history and | | | | Jingle Bells was written by James Pierpont in |
| popularity of Christmas carols is | | | | 1857 for a Thanksgiving program at his church |
| fascinating. Two of the most popular songs of | | | | in Boston. Everyone liked it and so it was |
| all time are Christmas carols. | | | | repeated at Christmas and it has been a |
| | | | Christmas song ever since. |
| Silent Night - was a poem written by an | | | | |
| Austrian priest, Joseph Mohr, in 1816. It | | | | O Little Town of Bethlehem was composed by |
| became a Christmas carol on Christmas Eve in | | | | Lewis Redner with words by Bishop Phillips |
| 1818 in Obendorf, Austria, a village near | | | | Brooks in 1868. The Bishop had been to the |
| Salzburg, when Joseph decided he needed a | | | | Holy Land a few years earlier and was |
| carol for Christmas Eve services. He gave the | | | | inspired by looking down on Bethlehem from |
| poem to his friend Franz Xavier Gruber who | | | | the hills of Palestine at night. |
| wrote the melody in a few hours. It was | | | | |
| composed for the guitar which was Joseph's | | | | Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer - A twentieth |
| favorite instrument. It is the most famous | | | | century carol created for Montgomery Ward by |
| Christmas carol of all time. | | | | Robert May. Montgomery Ward asked May to |
| | | | write a Christmas story to be given out to |
| God Rest Ye Merry, Gentleman - was first | | | | shoppers during the holidays. May was |
| published in William Sandy's "Christmas | | | | inspired by the tale of the Ugly Duckling and |
| Carols Ancient and Modern" in 1833. The | | | | his own sad youth as a small, shy child and |
| author is unknown. Most people sing and | | | | created the idea of the reindeer outcast |
| interpret this song as God Rest Ye, Merry | | | | shunned by the other reindeers because of his |
| Gentleman thinking it means for merry fellows | | | | bright red nose. He wrote the story in |
| to rest. The rest wasn't intended to mean lie | | | | rhyming couplets. It almost didn't get |
| down but to keep as you are, to stay merry. | | | | published because his boss at Montgomery Ward |
| Rest ye merry means to remain peacefully | | | | thought that the public would view the red |
| content and so the true meaning of the song | | | | nose as caused by drinking. May eventually |
| is hoping God will bestow this contentment on | | | | acquired the copyright for the song and it |
| the gentleman. Even Dickens misinterpreted | | | | was recorded by Gene Autry in 1949. It is the |
| the comma as God Rest Ye, Merry Gentleman | | | | second best selling song of all time with |
| when he refers to it in "A Christmas Carol". | | | | White Christmas being the first. Rudolph the |
| Scrooge didn't like the carol being sung at | | | | red-nosed reindeer is also a popular |
| his keyhole speaking of merriment. Bah | | | | Christmas ornament with a festive Christmas |
| Humbug. | | | | wreath hung around his neck. |
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