Songs about
Christmas. Some of them are mostly
tolerable for most of the
year but become more and more
unpleasant as
December advances and Christmas carols are all you ever hear in
stores,
elevators, and anywhere else that plays
music. Some others are nearly
forgotten -- if they were revived, perhaps the overplayed ones would be heard less often and become less annoying.
Often, only the oldest, most traditional songs are referred to as "carols," but where exactly the dividing line between Christmas carols and holiday music is has never been specified. (yerricde suggests that "the difference between Christmas carols and other holiday music is that Christmas carols were first published before 1923.") Some things I would consider carols:
- Adeste Fideles (O Come All Ye Faithful)
- Angels From the Realms of Glory
- Angels We Have Heard on High
- As With Gladness Men Of Old
- Away In A Manger
- The Boar's Head Carol
- Bring A Torch
- Carol of the Bells
- The Cherry Tree Carol
- Christ Was Born on Christmas Day
- Christians, Awake
- Coventry Carol
- Deck The Hall
- Ding Dong Merrily on High
- The First Noel
- From Heaven High I Come
- Gloucestershire Wassail
- God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen
- Good Christian Men, Rejoice
- Good King Wenceslas
- Gower Wassail
- Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
- Herod and the Cock
- The Holly and the Ivy
- How Brightly Beams The Morning Star
- I Saw Three Ships
- In Dulci Jubilo
- It Came upon the Midnight Clear
- Jingle Bells
- Joy To The World
- Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming
- Lully, Lully, Lu
- March of the Three Kings
- O Come, Little Children
- O Holy Night
- O Little Town of Bethlehem
- O Sanctissima
- O Tannenbaum
- Old Waits Carol
- Once In Royal David's City
- Riu Riu Chiu
- Shepherds, Shake Off Your Drowsy Sleep
- Silent Night (Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht!)
- Sleep, Holy Babe
- The Twelve Days of Christmas
- The Wassail Song
- There Is No Rose
- Watchman, Tell Us of the Night
- We Three Kings of Orient Are
- What Child Is This
- Whence Comes This Rush of Wings? (Carol of the Birds)
- While Shepherds Watched
- Zither Carol (Girls and Boys, Leave Your Toys)