Carolling and other defunct traditions?

Discussion in 'Miscellaneous' started by Warped9, Dec 4, 2011.

  1. Warped9

    Warped9 Admiral Admiral

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    Upon reading some books centred around Christmas, its history and traditions and Christmas oriented literature I've been thinking about traditions or practices that may or may not have died off or at least evolved into something else.

    The family centred Christmas as we recognize it, at least how it's observed in North America, came about largely in the 19th century. Before that Christmas was often observed quite differently. In some respects it wasn't much different from what we might recognize as contemporary Halloween in that bands of revellers roved the streets singing and visited homes "asking" for food and drink (treat) or risk being visited by some disfavour (trick). This was at odds with those who felt Christmas should be observed more piously without all the drunken (and sexual) revelry. This is mostly the reason the Puritans and some others objected to Christmas, because it was an excuse for disorderly behaviour. For some others they also objected because the bible never specified the date of Christ's birth and they felt December 25th was arbitrarily chosen to coincide with seasonal festivities around the winter solstice.

    The pre 19th century forms of "observing" or "keeping" Christmas are where many now familiar practices come from, from rituals that originated from other festivities unrelated to Christmas. But because of the timing of these festivals coinciding with December 25th many of the practices have become associated with Christmas. One of these rituals was wassailing or carolling (the singing of carols). This was originally the singing of festive songs that gradually embraced songs associated with Christmas or other holy days. Some of these carols and/pr hymns were also eventually adopted into church masses. Today the practice of carolling survives largely as the playing of what we recognize as Christmas music, although we can still hear people actually sing these songs at parties and social functions and even privately either singing or just whistling or humming a tune. We can also still hear Christmas hymns sung in church.

    In some old movies and books we hear and see of people carolling in the streets, but does anyone still do this today? The only examples I can actually recall firsthand are seeing Salvation Army volunteers gathered on some busy city street corner singing or carolling to passerbys.

    Many folks still use the holidays as something of an excuse for excessive drinking and "revelry," but people pretty much don't go around singing in the streets in exchange for food and drink from their neighbours anymore (to the best of my knowledge). But does anyone else recall actually seeing/hearing carollers out on the streets (beyond the Salvation Army) for the fun of it? Or perhaps you have actually gone carolling? Does anyone still burn yule logs?

    Are there any other rituals you think we still practice in some form or you think have become pretty much if not totally defunct?

    Thoughts anyone?
     
    Last edited: Dec 4, 2011
  2. cultcross

    cultcross Postponed for the snooker Moderator

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    Carolling is alive and well this side of the pond. Both in public places (often with a charity tin) or door-to-door (again, with the intention of earning money but not usually this time for charity). There's a funny mix of teenagers messing about and thinking they'll make money from it and people who take it very seriously indeed.

    It is also common to attend carol services near Christmas, even for the non- or only semi- religious.
     
  3. Warped9

    Warped9 Admiral Admiral

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    :techman:
     
  4. sidious618

    sidious618 Admiral Admiral

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    I've never seen anyone carol in my life. I don't think I'd like it.
     
  5. Warped9

    Warped9 Admiral Admiral

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    Really? When I was a kid I can recall my father or other relatives striking up a song during Christmas at a family party. But out in the street with others I can't really recall seeing it.
     
  6. { Emilia }

    { Emilia } Cute but deadly Moderator

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    I used to live in a house that faces the main market square of a small German city.
    I ended up hating christmas markets (Weihnachtsmarkt) because even with closed windows I could hear people singing christmas songs, untalented kids play christmas songs on their trumpets and tubas, even more kids singing christmas songs, weird Russian christmas songs with even weirder instruments, then some more kids singing christmas songs and occasionally 2 Polish guys singing Italian songs and opera.

    All fucking day long.

    Like Cultcross said there's teenagers thinking they'll make some money.

    Gaaaaah.
     
  7. sidious618

    sidious618 Admiral Admiral

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    This would be like my worst nightmare. :lol:
     
  8. Roger Wilco

    Roger Wilco Admiral Admiral

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    Unfortunately where I live there's a horrible catholic tradition of sending kids out panhandling for money between new year and January 6th, dressed as the "Three Kings" or whatever the fuck it's called in English singing bad christmas songs. Thankfully, they just bother you once a year and they usually shut up soon when you don't open the door.
     
  9. Tora Ziyal

    Tora Ziyal Vice Admiral Admiral

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    When I was doing youth ministry in the 80's, we took the kids caroling door-to-door. Not collecting money, just bringing some Christmas spirit to the neighborhood. It was fun.

    When I was a child, we always spent Christmas Eve at my aunt and uncle's. Everyone sang carols, with my uncle and a few of us cousins taking turns at the piano. Mostly we sang the common stuff, but my favorite was -- and still is -- Tu Scendi Dalle Stelle (aka O Bambino). Yes, this was the Italian side of the family.
     
  10. auntiehill

    auntiehill The Blooness Premium Member

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    I remember people carolling when I was a kid--maybe in second grade, or thereabouts. In college, there were groups who went around campus carolling, just for fun. It was a good way to get into the holiday spirit.

    Most people that do it around here do it just for fun, or as a hobby. There's a big Dickens Fair on Galveston every year (was this weekend, actually) and people go to perform, but they do for fun, not for money (mostly). I know some charity groups do it to raise money, but that's a pretty rare thing.

    So, yes, there are still carollers, but not that many. It's just something people do, once a year, if they like to sing and perform.
     
  11. doubleohfive

    doubleohfive Fleet Admiral

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    I too recall going caroling with my mother and siblings when I was younger. One year, my mother insisted I bring my trumpet and play instead of sing, as she thought it would be more festive. In retrospect, while I didn't really enjoy it at the time, I regret not taking advantage of the time with my family; I think I'd probably enjoy it a lot more today.

    Christmas in Los Angeles is odd. We have our tropic/desert weather and architecture and greenery, plus the holiday decorations in the sunny warmth most of the time. For an East Coast transplant, it took a while for it to really stop being unusual to me. But I have seen and heard carolers since moving here, and certainly there are groups doing it back home in Virginia and DC.

    YMMV of course.
     
  12. Spot's Meow

    Spot's Meow Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I just saw some carollers last week at the local Christmas tree lighting ceremony. Many people stopped to listen. A lot of them had instruments (in fact I think it might have been a university marching band).
     
  13. Trekker4747

    Trekker4747 Boldly going... Premium Member

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    Wait?! Caroling is dead?! Then I had a very strange and vivid hallucination last December.
     
    Last edited: Dec 5, 2011
  14. SeerSGB

    SeerSGB Admiral Admiral

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    Carolling isn't dead (unfortunately). I was in the Food City last night and 3 young girls and their dad were walking around store singing carols at the top of their lungs.

    Now,

    (1) I don't do Christmas. I suffer through for the kids, but the standing rule around here is I don't do Christmas otherwise-- don't get me gifts just cause it's Christmas, don't call me up to wish me a merry Christmas if you don't talk me the other 364 days of the year...in short I don't do Christmas.
    (2) I don't like Christmas music regardless of the singer. Don't get me wrong, I've heard some beautiful singers over the years, I just don't like Christmas song, never had.

    So add to that 4 people that couldn't sing if their lives depended on it (seriously, it was headache inducing how bad they were; a cat with it's tail caught in the door would sound like a grammy winner compared to these 4) and singing at as loud as they could. It was just ~shudder~...I was reaching for the Tylenol as I went out the door.

    Several customers and staffers asked them to stop, and dear old dad would (each time) launch into a tirade about the war on Christmas and "Get into the spirit of the holiday".
     
  15. Brefugee

    Brefugee No longer living the Irish dream. Premium Member

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    Indeed, my other half is a member of a choir here in Bath and they've already done one carol service in town and have a few more planned for the coming weeks including a big performance this Saturday.
     
  16. Tora Ziyal

    Tora Ziyal Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Now that's just plain thoughtless and rude. And unchristian.
     
  17. CaptainStoner

    CaptainStoner Knuckle-dragging TNZ Denizen Admiral

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    I think I will go an wassail a tree
     
  18. Warped9

    Warped9 Admiral Admiral

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    My opening question may have come across wrong. I know that carolling still exists. It's just that I couldn't recall any recent instances of seeing/hearing carolling firsthand. But just because I haven't seen it firsthand myself in the last thirty years or so doesn't mean I think carolling has become extinct. That's why I was asking for other people's experiences and recollections regarding carolling and other perhaps more obscure Christmas rituals.

    Although hardly obscure I do recall being bundled up when I was small on Christmas Eve to go to evening mass before returning home to greet Christmas at midnight. Everyone present would wish each other "Joyeux Noel" and hug and kiss and then gifts would be opened. After about an hour or so we would all sit down for a small meal of cold meats, cheese, salads, potatoes and meat pies and other treats. Then after a little more socializing visitors would depart and those remaining would go to bed, sufficiently tired to fall asleep right away. This kind of Christmas Eve festivity could last easily until 3 or 4 in the morning. Of course, as we all aged Christmas Eve mass eventually fell by the wayside and the festivities ended earlier and earlier as guests became fewer. Now we still stay up to greet Christmas at midnight and open our gifts, but we might eat our small meal before midnight and we're usually in bed by 2am at the latest and often earlier. The absence of small kids playing with toys and charging the atmosphere with their energy doesn't encourage adults to stay up later. But I'm sure the kind of Christmases I remember as a child are still practiced somewhere among other French Canadian families, particularly where there may be large family gatherings with a good number of small kids.

    My parents recall Christmas Eve mass more clearly because it was more prominent in their childhood than it was in mine. Their childhood Christmas memories are often of being bundled up in an actual horse drawn sleigh to go to evening mass. They also recall large family gatherings with singing and dancing and playing of musical instruments, be it a fiddle, accordion, guitar and harmonica. When I was in my early twenties I recall my immediate friends and I going about visiting each others' families on Christmas Eve, and I made sure to be home by about ten o'clock or so. I kind of miss that, but all those friends are off somewhere else with their own lives and contact is now sporadic in the form of an occasional email from some of them. One of them I still see with some regularity around Christmas because he eventually became my brother-in-law.

    When I was small I do remember sitting up late just to gaze at our lit up Christmas Tree and wonder at the presents beneath it. We would listen to Christmas music on the radio or listen to records. When listening to the radio we'd pay close attention to NORAD reports of tracking an object originating from the North Pole. :) And we watched the clock ticking off the minutes. :lol:

    While I do recall some of the gifts I received in those long ago days what I really remember are the sights and sounds and smells and the feelings of magic and anticipation. As an adult during the years when I couldn't be home for Christmas the thought uppermost in my mind, the one thing I wanted most, was simply to be home with family.
     
  19. ShamelessMcBundy

    ShamelessMcBundy Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I was born and raised in southern California and have never seen anyone caroling. Is it mostly an East Coast thing?
     
  20. doubleohfive

    doubleohfive Fleet Admiral

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    You should probably add the words "where I live." to the end of that sentence.

    Yes.