“We’d like for you to sing traditional carols at the Tree Lighting.”

“Wonderful, that is just what we love to do.”

Our homeschool history club advisor was glad when the organizers of our town’s tree lighting ceremony finally called. It was someone different this year and we needed to know how long they wanted us to sing. For years, our group had gone caroling in historical costume to the businesses downtown, ending up at the Tree Lighting where we sang favorite Christ-honoring carols. It was a nice contrast to the groups from the local public schools that sang bland and irrelevant songs, like “Winter Nights, Winter Lights,” as if a mention that the lights were actually about celebrating Christmas would cause a Constitutional crisis.

“Do you have any favorites you’d like us to do? “Hark the Herald Angels Sing”? “Joy to the World”?” our dear advisor asked.

“Huh? No, we wanted you to sing traditional carols! Don’t you know any? You know, like “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “Frosty the Snowman.”

We weren’t interested. There were any number of groups that could “celebrate” Christmas without reference to the birth of a Savior.

Has it really come to that? Have we let things slide to the point that Frosty and Rudolph are traditional carols and Joy to the World isn’t? May it never be! Here’s an excerpt from our newly released (which you can download), Christ-Centered Christmas, that shares how we preserve the tradition of trolling ancient carols…

Caroling Parties

Christmas is the only time of year that it is not only socially acceptable, but considered a gift to knock on stranger’s doors and sing hymns full of gospel truth to them! We don’t want this tradition to ever die out, so every year we invite like minded families to come caroling with us.

We invite a few families to come each time just after supper and we meet in our front yard so folks don’t have to remove their wraps. We try to have hymnals or the words to the carols we plan to sing copied for everyone. We walk around the neighborhood, knocking wherever we see lights. When people come to the door, we just begin singing. We do sing more than one verse of the carols because it’s often the middle verses that contain the most truth! We keep it to one or two carols per house, though, unless they seem really excited about us singing more. We end with “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” and shout, “Merry Christmas!” and leave.

What a blessing to be able to share the words of life with our neighbors so easily! When our voices give out, we return to our house for refreshments. We usually put on a spread like we do for Christmas Eve, but perhaps a little lighter, since folks have already had supper. This is one of our favorite times of the season!

Our local homeschool history club goes caroling downtown every year in historical costumes. Our whole town looks forward to it and talks about it. The past several years, they’ve been asked to do it on the eve of the town’s Christmas tree lighting and to come early and sing at the town’s ceremony and to perform at the Festival of Trees. What a delight to fill the air with praises to our Savior and in the form of songs that people associate with joy and happiness.

Take a look at those old Christmas hymns and read the words of those middle verses. What a privilege to share that with the world!

To find out more about Christ-Centered Christmas: The Ultimate Guide to Celebrating a Christmas Your Family Will Never Forget, click here, or just order below.