The Christmas truce of World War One

The Story of the WWI Christmas Truce by Mike Dash for Smithsonian magazine.

Once in Royal David’s City

This selection is lifted from Lambert Strether’s Christmas Eve 2020 message on Naked Capitalism.

I enjoyed the whole message and the comment thread that followed.

Merry Christmas 2018

Merry Christmas 2016

Happy Birthday, Jesus by Addison Del Mastro for The American Conservative.

MERRY CHRISTMAS 2014

This is a 14th century Irish carol which tells the story of the Angel Gabriel’s visit to Mary.  The lyrics are a Latin version of Chapter One of the Gospel of Luke.

Source: Saturday Chorale

Hat tip to Making Light.

Christmas carols remixed

My favorite Christmas carols are the traditional religious carols sung in the traditional way, but this medley is good fun, too.

The beauty of traditional Christmas carols

The outspoken atheist Richard Dawkins prefers the beautiful traditional religious Christmas carols to the 19th century winter songs and the 20th century Santa Claus songs.

“All that ‘Happy Holiday Season’ stuff, with ‘holiday’ cards and ‘holiday’ presents,” is a tiresome import from the United States, where it has long been fostered more by rival religions than atheists,” Mr. Dawkins wrote [in Britain’s New Statesman magazine last year].

As a “cultural Anglican,” Mr. Dawkins continued, “I recoil from such secular carols as ‘White Christmas,’ ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and the loathsome ‘Jingle Bells,’ but I’m happy to sing real carols, and in the unlikely event that anyone wants me to read a lesson I’ll gladly oblige — only from the King James Version, of course.”

Me, too.

Here are some links to recordings and lyrics of the traditional carols

The Hymns and Carols of Christmas

TRADITIONAL CHRISTMAS CAROLS

Christmas Carol Collection

Syncopated Sleigh Ride

I like traditional Christmas carols best, but this is delightful.

Hat tip to Obsidian Wings.

I still prefer the traditional Christmas carols

Click on xkcd for the source of this chart.

I know of no popular songs more beautiful than the traditional Christmas carols.  It would be a shame if they were crowded out by the modern non-sectarian holiday carols.  The modern carols are all right for what they are.  They are just not as beautiful at the traditional carols.

Click on The Hymns and Carols of Christmas for a comprehensive list of links to recordings and lyrics of every traditional Christmas song I ever heard of, and many that I haven’t.

Are there any popular songs more beautiful?

Are there any more beautiful songs, known and sung by almost everyone, than the traditional Christmas carols?