You may think that Holiday music or the Christmas Carols you know - the classics - have been around so long that just about everyone has heard them, maybe even knows the words by heart, and has sung them. The truth is that "classic" Christmas songs are not the same songs that churchgoers and door to door carolers sang decades ago and in the future, someone living in 2050 may have never heard of say, Adam Sandler, singing the funny Hanukah song or understand the references to Captain Kirk. They may have changed or dropped religion and not even understand who or why "Come oh Come Emanuel."
So, this year, when your family is gathered, keep the lyrics and if possible the sheet music to the songs they sang and include it in your genealogy project so that that your descendants can try out these songs, listen to them, think about the lyrics and the times they were sung in.
Searching the web I located this site
WHY CHRISTMAS CUSTOMS CAROLS
EXCERPT :
"This was changed by St. Francis of Assisi when, in 1223, he started his Nativity Plays in Italy. The people in the plays sang songs or 'canticles' that told the story during the plays. Sometimes, the choruses of these new carols were in Latin; but normally they were all in a language that the people watching the play could understand and join in! The new carols spread to France, Spain, Germany and other European countries.
The earliest carol, like this, was written in 1410. Sadly only a very small fragment of it still exists. The carol was about Mary and Jesus meeting different people in Bethlehem. Most Carols from this time and the Elizabethan period are untrue stories, very loosely based on the Christmas story, about the holy family and were seen as entertaining rather than religious songs. They were usually sung in homes rather than in churches! Traveling singers or Minstrels started singing these carols and the words were changed for the local people wherever they were traveling. One carols that changed like this is 'I Saw Three Ships'.
When Oliver Cromwell and the Puritans came to power in England in 1647, the celebration of Christmas and singing carols was stopped. However, the carols survived as people still sang them in secret. Carols remained mainly unsung until Victorian times, when two men called William Sandys and Davis Gilbert collected lots of old Christmas music from villages in England.
Before carol singing in public became popular, there were sometimes official carol singers called 'Waits'. These were bands of people led by important local leaders (such as council leaders) who had the only power in the towns and villages to take money from the public (if others did this, they were sometimes charged as beggars!). They were called 'Waits' because they only sang on Christmas Eve (This was sometimes known as 'watchnight' or 'waitnight' because of the shepherds were watching their sheep when the angels appeared to them.), when the Christmas celebrations began..."
Fascinationg!
