Advent: Christmas Songs

"There was one, there were two, there were three little angels in a band. Oh wasn't that a Tuesday morning?"

This has been the refrain at our house since preschool on Tuesday, where they sang this song about angels in a band on Tuesday morning. I'd never heard it before and it sounded like quite an odd song, but I just googled it and found out it's a real, traditional Christmas song:

TEN LITTLE ANGELS(Traditional / Arr. Hap Palmer)
One glorious Christmas morning
Ten angels did appear
And each one held an instrument
Carefully made by hand
First they counted off to ten
Playing one by one
Then they played together
In a joyful Angel Band
There was one, there were two,
There were three little angels
There were four, there were five,
There were six little angels
There were seven, there were eight,
There were nine little angels
Ten little angels in the band.
Oh, wasn't that a band, Christmas morning
Christmas morning, Christmas morning,
Wasn't that a band, Christmas morning
Ten little angels in the band

I shouldn't have doubted. There are a bajillion Christmas songs. I've even heard about two new ones this year, "Christmas in East Haven" and one called the "Twelve Days of Christmas" about all that can go wrong. Sure, these are comic songs, not traditional ones, more in the vein of "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer" or even Adam Sandler's hilarious "Hanukkah Song." But every now and then that's great. For me, it beats the thousandth rendition of (one of my favorite carols) "O Holy Night" by this year's diva.

Which is to say, I don't usually listen to the Christmas marathons on the radio. I can only hear my favorites "Last Christmas" and "Do They Know It's Christmas?" so many times in one day. Back when those songs came out, they were about the only Christmas tunes that got play on Top 40 radio (why was it 40?), which didn't switch formats for a month back then. I think I like the olden days.

But I love Christmas music. "O Holy Night," "Here We go a Wassailing," "Good King Wenceslas" (the first song I could play on the piano), "Winter Wonderland," "Greensleeves," "Holly and the Ivy," and "Carol of the Bells." My favorite artist is Johnny Mathis, whose album my folks frequently played. Then there were the popular renditions of Christmas standards from their youth and young adulthood--"White Christmas," "Jingle Bell Rock," "Frosty the Snowman,"--you know, the songs that Time-Life puts together on one CD. Those are the "right" versions for me. At the time, radio would go all-Christmas just for Christmas Eve and Christmas day, and we'd listen to it as we drove around looking at lights, with Dad or Mom changing the station if a song we didn't know and couldn't sing to came along.

Because that's the point with Christmas songs: singing along together. It's pretty much the only time of year that we still encourage amateur singing in groups, besides birthdays. No one cares if you aren't a virtuoso when you're singing "Rudolph;" it's all about how well you know the cutesy add-ons (you know, reindeer playing Monopoly or Christopher Columbus and all that). It's about passion, enthusiasm, fearlessness, joy. Which is why the most popular part of my family's annual big Christmas gathering (which happened last weekend, though we missed it for the umpeenth time) is the singalong that my mom started years ago with photocopied songsheets. The favorite carol? "Twelve Days of Christmas" and how well you can cheerfully sing the "5 golden rings" part. If memory serves, each family or grouping gets a number and sings it as their turn comes up. My parents are both great singers in that they love to sing, can carry a tune (not, you know, in a professional way but they aren't tone deaf either; sometimes they've been known to try harmony), sing out, and remember (most of) the words. As I've said, I'm a great Girl Scout singer for the same reasons--indifferent voice but with lots of happiness and a memory for a wide range of songs (Mama is much more shy but sings very well, not that I think you'll ever get to hear her, unless you catch her singing with the kids. And if she were to sing, it would be "Do You Hear What I Hear?" with the little lamb).

And so, we're trying to do a lot of singing around here this year. Yesterday, "Frosty" came on the radio (I guess those Christmas marathons are coming in handy this year) and I pulled out our book and we followed along. Sis and Bud were mesmerized. I'm not sure they thought that other people sang our "Frosty" book song. It was fun, even the second and third times. And Vespers at our church is all carols that pretty much everyone knows. So we'll have a good time singing there.

I hope it carries over into the new year. I just bought a book, Rise Up Singing, that has the words (but not the music) to 1500 popular songs (Gommie, I'll bet you know a lot of them). I'm hoping it will help me remember to encourage group singing. And give me the words to lead by. Until then, I'm safe with most Christmas songs. And I'll be practicing this little angel band one.