Christmas carol

“ Doris Sands and Emily Rankin gave out the popcorn and candy toys. The children were too much awe-struck to think of talking. They just sat still and gazed, all the while sucking their candy, and looking expectantly at the alluring parcels under the tree.
In a short time, from the direction of the office, a great chorus of song came:
"Silent night, holy night,
All is calm, all is bright——"
the famous old Christmas carol that children and grown people everywhere love. ”

“ And so the old years, fraught with memories, die, one after another, and the new years, bright with hopes, are born to take their places; but Carol lives again in every chime of Christmas bells that peal glad tidings and in every Christmas anthem sung by childish voices. ”

“ Dunstan had but nipped the Evil Spirit's nose with a touch of such weather as that, instead of using his familiar weapons, then indeed he would have roared to lusty purpose. The owner of one scant young nose, gnawed and mumbled by the hungry cold as bones are gnawed by dogs, stooped down at Scrooge's keyhole to regale him with a Christmas carol ”

“ Everything about Carol was very cheerful. No matter, indeed, how much we might play and whisper about gifts and tinsels and jolly-colored candles, Christmas never, I think, seemed really probable to any of us until that one jumpy moment, just at the end of the Thanksgiving dinner, when, heralded by a slam in the wood-shed, a hoppytyskip in the hall, the dining-room door flung widely open on Carol's eyes twinkling like a whole skyful of stars through the shaggy, dark branches of a young spruce-tree. It made young Derry Willard laugh right out loud. ”

“ So once again they moved round the tree, singing Christmas carols. Every time there was a pause somebody struck up a new carol, that had to be sung through. The doors opposite were open too, the old rag-picker sat at the head of his table singing on his own account. He had a loaf of black bread and a plate of bacon in front of him, and after every carol he took a mouthful. In the other doorway sat three coal-porters playing “sixty-six” for beer and brandy. They sat facing toward the Christmas-tree, and they joined in the singing as they played ”

“ After the turn of midnight, on Christmas-eve, service is performed in the churches, followed by singing carols to the harp. Whilst the Christmas holidays continue, they are sung in like manner in the houses; and there are carols especially adapted to be sung at the doors of the houses by visitors before they enter. Lffyr Carolan, or the Book of Carols, contains sixty-six for Christmas, and five summer carols. Blodengerdd Cymrii, or the Anthology of Wales, contains forty-eight Christmas carols, nine summer carols, three May carols, one winter carol, one nightingale carol, and a carol to Cupid. ”

“ Out upon merry Christmas! What’s Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in ’em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I could work my will,” said Scrooge indignantly, “every idiot who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. ”

“ Mrs. Pelham (in pretty evening gown and a spray of holly in her hair, looks wistful and discontented. She stands by a table and fingers some of the gifts, and then sits at the piano and hums a snatch of a Christmas carol, and then throws herself into an easy chair. She speaks) : Dick, do stop reading the paper, and be Christmassy! It might as well be the eighteenth of July as the twenty-fourth of December, for all the Christmas spirit you show! I do think this is the pokiest old Christmas Eve I ever spent, and I thought it was going to be the loveliest! ”

“ The Christmas carols at Lichfield Cathedral, sung by the full choir at the special evening service on St. Stephen's Day (December 26th) , have, for many years, attracted large and appreciative congregations, and the last of these celebrations in the nineteenth century (on December 26, 1900) was well sustained by the singers and attended by many hundreds of citizens and visitors. Eight Christmas Carols and an anthem were sung, the concluding Carol being "The First Nowell" ”

“ She must advise about the turkey, and Bridget must bring the pudding to her bedside and let her drop every separate plum into it and stir it once for luck, or I'll not eat a single slice—for Carol is the dearest part of Christmas to Uncle Jack, and he'll have none of it without her. She is better than all the turkeys and puddings and apples and spare-ribs and wreaths and garlands and mistletoe and stockings and chimneys and sleigh-bells in Christendom. ”

“ The Cherry-Tree Carol "In Excelsis Gloria" "God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen" The Golden Carol Caput apri refero resonens laudes domino "Villagers All, this Frosty Tide" Holly Song "Before the Paling of the Stars" The Minstrels played their Christmas Tune A Carol from the Old French "From Far Away we come to you" A Christmas Carol A Christmas Carol for Children
[Pg 81]
[Pg 82]
The First Christmas Carol
FEAR not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. ”

“ On Christmas day, on Christmas day;
And all the souls on earth shall sing
On Christmas day in the morning.
Old Carol.
Santa Claus
He comes in the night! He comes in the night!
He softly, silently comes;
While the little brown heads on the pillows so white
[270] Are dreaming of bugles and drums.
He cuts through the snow like a ship through the foam,
While the white flakes around him whirl;
Who tells him I know not, but he findeth the home
Of each good little boy and girl.
His sleigh it is long, and deep, and wide ”

“ One is to shout. The other is to whisper. I decided to whisper.
"You don't seem to understand," I whispered. "It's Christmas relationships that are worrying Carol and me so! It worries us dreadfully! Oh, of course we understand all about the Little Baby Christ! And the camels! And the wise men! And the frankincense! That's easy! But who is Santa Claus? Unless—unless—?" It was Carol himself who signaled me to go on. "Unless—he's the Baby Christ's grandfather?" I thought Derry Willard looked a little bit startled. Carol's ears turned bright red. ”

“ Bird sank into a chair by the table, and buried his face in his hands, to keep his wife from seeing the tears that would come in spite of all his efforts. "But, Donald, dear," said sweet Mrs. Bird, with trembling voice, "Christmas day may not be so merry with us as it used, but it is very happy, and that is better, and very blessed, and that is better yet. I suffer chiefly for Carol's sake, but I have almost given up being sorrowful for my own. I am too happy in the child, and I see too clearly what she has done for us and for our boys." ”

“ The goat was baaing, the new-born child wailed, and the donkeys breathed loudly. There was something primitive and biblical about the whole scene.
Without, in the violet light of the dawn, while a distant church-bell scattered its early notes through the air, one of the young apprentices, [Pg 39] dancing in the snow to keep warm, sang out at the top of his lungs that old Christmas carol, which seemed then full of new meaning and poetry,—
"He is born, the little Child. ”

“ Bird, promptly; "is there any need of my little girl's going without her Christmas, I should like to know? Spend all the money you like."
"But that isn't the thing," objected Carol, nestling close to her father; "it wouldn't be mine. What is the use? Haven't I almost everything already, and am I not the happiest girl in the world this year, with Uncle Jack and Donald at home? Now, Papa, you know very well it is more blessed to give than to receive; then why won't you let me do it? You never look half as happy when you are getting your presents as when you are giving us ours. ”

“ Then a door was opened into the next room, and there, in a corner facing Carol's bed, which had been wheeled as close as possible, stood the brilliantly lighted Christmas tree, glittering with gilded walnuts and tiny silver balloons, and wreathed with snowy chains of pop-corn. The presents had been bought mostly with Carol's story-money, and were selected after long consultations with Mrs. Bird. Each girl had a [Pg 58] blue knitted hood, and each boy a red crocheted comforter, all made by Mamma, Carol, and Elfrida. ("Because if you buy everything, it doesn't show so much love," said Carol.) ”

“ The family festival was quiet and very pleasant, but almost overshadowed by the grander preparations for the next day. Carol and Elfrida, her pretty German nurse, had ransacked books, and introduced so many plans, and plays, and customs, and merry-makings from Germany, and Holland, and England, and a dozen other countries, that you would scarcely have known how or where you were keeping Christmas. Even the dog and the cat had enjoyed their celebration under Carol's direction. Each had a tiny table with a lighted candle in the [Pg 30] centre, and a bit of Bologna sausage placed very near it ”

“ Dear Mrs. Ruggles,—I am going to have a dinner-party on Christmas Day, and would like to have all your children come. I want them every one, please, from Sarah [Pg 33] Maud to Baby Larry. Mamma says dinner will be at half past five, and the Christmas tree at seven; so you may expect them home at nine o'clock. Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, I am
Yours truly,
Carol Bird. ”

“ But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round—apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. ”

“ “My dear,” was Bob’s mild answer, “Christmas Day.”
“I’ll drink his health for your sake and the Day’s,” said Mrs. Cratchit, “not for his. Long life to him! A merry Christmas and a happy new year! He’ll be very merry and very happy, I have no doubt!” ”

“ To sit, staring at those fixed glazed eyes, in silence for a moment, would play, Scrooge felt, the very deuce with him. There was something very awful, too, in the spectre’s being provided with an infernal atmosphere of its own. Scrooge could not feel it himself, but this was clearly the case; for though the Ghost sat perfectly motionless, its hair, and skirts, and tassels, were still agitated as by the hot vapour from an oven. ”

“ They have now lost their dance and the melody has changed, but the ideas are very ancient. The Holly and the Ivy suggest the old Druids, and we still put up Holly and Ivy in our houses just as people did before the time of Christ. We put them up at Christmas, and we sing the carol at Christmas—but the idea at the back of it is older than Christmas, for the Church accepted all that was found to be of value in the old customs, and adapted them to set forth the newer faith. The carrying in of the Boar’s Head is an old ceremony, too. ”

“ HE term "Carol" is not an easy one to define. The Rev. H. R. Bramley's definition—a kind of popular song appropriated to some special season of the ecclesiastical or natural year—is, perhaps, the best that has been devised; it is, at any rate, wide enough to embrace all the songs in this collection. Formerly there existed carols associated with Easter (e.g. "The Moon shines bright") and other festivals of the Church's year; but the carol of the present day is almost invariably connected with the season of Christmas. ”

“ cried Scrooge, laughing and crying in the same breath; and making a perfect Laocoön of himself with his stockings. “I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to everybody! A happy New Year to all the world. Hallo here! ”

“ “I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. ”

“ "Christmas a humbug, uncle!" said Scrooge's nephew. "You don't mean that, I am sure?"
"I do," said Scrooge. "Merry Christmas! What right have you to be merry? What reason have you to be merry? You're poor enough." ”

“ Among them are the Lord of Misrule, who in old days directed the Christmas revels; Roast Beef, “that English Champion bold,” who has saved many a sturdy Englishman from starvation; Plum Pudding, a blackamoor, with rich round face and rosemary cockade; and Minced Pie, and Baby Cake, and Mumming and Wassail and Offering and Carol, and New Year’s Gift, and others too numerous to mention.
Many members of this robust family will be recognized as contributors to the Christmas cheer of to-day. Others have disappeared forever. ”

“ “A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!” cried a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge’s nephew, who came upon him so quickly that this was the first intimation he had of his approach.
“Bah!” said Scrooge, “Humbug!” ”

“ After the Restoration, the people gladly returned to their amusements without restraint, and from the reaction, in many instances perhaps, went into the opposite extreme and indulged in too much conviviality. Carol singing was renewed with increased zeal.
“Carols and not minc’d meat make Christmas pies,
’Tis mirth, not dishes, sets a table off;
Brutes and phanaticks eat and never laugh.” ”