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Has anyone ever gone caroling?

Tribbles

Tribbles

Commander
Red Shirt
I know it's July and it's blazing hot outside for many of us, but I have a crazy obsession with the holidays from October-December. I've been thinking about Christmas today and how I've always wanted to go caroling. I'm thinking about getting my friends and siblings together this year and making the rounds in one of our neighborhoods.

I realize it seems like a very quaint activity, and I'm really not sure what kind of reactions we'd get if my friends and I went caroling in a neighborhood. Would people run us off their yards? Would they be delighted and sing along? Would they look out the window and watch us nervously until we gave each other awkward glances and shuffled along to the next house?

Does anyone have any experience with caroling, good or bad? Any suggestions?
 
Yes, I've gone caroling. No one invited us in, so we froze, but yeah, it was fun. :D
 
Oh, so kids are the ticket to a warm reception? Good to know. I'll make sure my best friend brings her baby along (just born a month ago). :)
 
If you want to go caroling, check around to see if a local hospital or nursing home will allow you to come. It's indoors, so it's warmer, and the patients will probably be cheered up to see you. I've gone caroling at nursing homes before, and I had a great experience.
 
Thanks, Vulcan Princess! That's a great idea, and one of my friends works at a nursing home, so I'm sure she could arrange it.
 
Tribbles said:
I know it's July and it's blazing hot outside for many of us, but I have a crazy obsession with the holidays from October-December. I've been thinking about Christmas today and how I've always wanted to go caroling. I'm thinking about getting my friends and siblings together this year and making the rounds in one of our neighborhoods.

I realize it seems like a very quaint activity, and I'm really not sure what kind of reactions we'd get if my friends and I went caroling in a neighborhood. Would people run us off their yards? Would they be delighted and sing along? Would they look out the window and watch us nervously until we gave each other awkward glances and shuffled along to the next house?

Does anyone have any experience with caroling, good or bad? Any suggestions?
Click to expand...
Yes, when I was in grade/junior high school. Of course, that was back in the '60s when people were considerably less paranoid and we were accompanied by teachers (Catholic education). It was fun.
 
Vulcan Princess said:
If you want to go caroling, check around to see if a local hospital or nursing home will allow you to come. It's indoors, so it's warmer, and the patients will probably be cheered up to see you. I've gone caroling at nursing homes before, and I had a great experience.
Click to expand...

Our choir group used to go singing carols in retirement homes during the Christmas season. It did feel good to make those folks feel better.
 
In retrospect, I think it's a good, wholesome hobby or thing to do during Christmastime. However, I would feel a bit... self conscious. A slightly better singing voice wouldn't hurt, but perhaps simply attempting to train my voice would suffice to eliminate that bit of said self consciousness.
 
I went with a group of friends for the first time this past Christmas. We caroled to raise money for a charity...not sure which. All that mattered to me was that I got to sing Christmas carols. I love them to death, and my choir director never does lets us perform any. He hates them. :lol: Says they're overused and have no meaning any more. Most of the other carolers in our group were fellow choir members, so we had fun harmonizing, and breaking the carols down into 2 and 4 parts. :lol: Everyone who listened seem to enjoy it, and one let us come in for a while to get warm. We even visited the home of a local soldier who was seriously wounded in Iraq, and is still going through rehab. We didn't ask for any donations from his family, because we knew just how much they were going through. We just wanted to brighten up their evening a bit. As we finished off that block, the soldier's sister drove up to us, and handed us a 20...saying that her brother demanded that she run it down to us. That...really touched us. True meaning of the holidays, really.

That story aside...if you decide to go residentially, I'd certainly recommend seeing if you could carol of raise money for a charity.:)
 
Here's a tale.

Xmas Down Under is in summer. My Mum wanted us kids (I was 10 at the time) to have a 'little bit of home' (I was born in Scotland), so she organised a carol singing event.

Now, I should add that we lived on a wheat-growing property waaaaayy out in New South Wales. The key word under al;l this is 'hot'. We had to wait until dark to even think about doing it. There were about ten or twelve kids all up. We practiced for a couple of weeks, then at nightfall went from house to house and entertained the parents and itinerant workers. Along the way were cold drinks, chocolates, and cakes. Keep in mind tick or treating was unknown in Australia then, except as some odd custom in foreign countries. It was great.

Finally, we stopped at the hut of an old guy called Jack. He was a general hand and had been living and working there since the turn of the previous century. He was lying down on a bed on the verandah, and Mum said, "He might be sleeping, so we'll just sing one song quietly and go." So we sang, and just as we were about to finish, he sat up and stared at us.

"Oh!" he said, "I thought I'd died, and the angels were singing me to Heaven!" We sang him a couple more songs, and he really loved it, this grizzled old man.

Mum passed away a couple of years ago, and Jack went a long time ago. And that is one of my most cherished childhood memories.
 
Sarek of Vulcan said:
Our choir group used to go singing carols in retirement homes during the Christmas season. It did feel good to make those folks feel better.
Click to expand...
This makes me thinking about giving seminars on theoretical cosmology at retirement homes during the winter holidays. It would double as sleeping aid, too.
 
Regarding the quality of anyone's voice, the thing I like about caroling is that most folks know the melodies, and you can always sing as softly or as loudly as you feel comfortable. It
is an excellent time for people who are a bit shy about singing to have a chance to sing comfortably within a larger group.

Our church youth group went caroling to nursing homes in our area back when I was a member in high school. The residents really enjoyed it, and it made us all feel good to make them happy. Seeing the condition that some of the older folks were in, though, was a bit of a sobering reminder of the frailty of our bodies as we age. A bittersweet memory, but I think we did some real good on our visits.

In college at Syracuse, some of us organized caroling through some of the neighborhoods at the edge of campus. We did this two different years. For the heck of it, we went to the Chancellor's house and we were actually invited in by his wife to sing with the two of them near their Christmas tree (I still feel a little bad about how we slushed up their carpet!)!

We've gone other times in our neighborhoods and made it a family thing.... afterwards we went back to someone's house for food and drink and usually to warm up by a fireplace!

Go have fun! My suggestion would be to print up some copies of the words for people in the group who might not know all the lyrics. Also, on different occasions we may have brought along a bottle of schnapps or two to add to the flavor along our trek, but no one ever got intoxicated. That would be kind of tacky, in my opinion.
 
I used to go caroling as a kid, but last year was the first time I went as an adult. A bunch of us got an old hay wagon and made the rounds through town. Froze our asses off and had to keep making the drinks stronger to prevent them from freezing (may be why we were all signing off key), but it was fun.
 
iguana_tonante said:
Sarek of Vulcan said:
Our choir group used to go singing carols in retirement homes during the Christmas season. It did feel good to make those folks feel better.
Click to expand...
This makes me thinking about giving seminars on theoretical cosmology at retirement homes during the winter holidays. It would double as sleeping aid, too.
Click to expand...

:lol:

Little Old Man: "Hey, are you here to sing Jingle Bells?"
Iguana: "Not quite. I will, instead, be lecturing you on the measurement of universal expansion rate by denoting the redshift of cepheids."
Little Old Woman: "Are we having pudding when you're done?"
Iguana: "No. There will be no pudding."
Little Old Man: <singing softly> "Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle all the way..."
Iguana: "There will be no singing."
<dismayed silence in the room followed by muted sniffles>
Iguana: "There will also be no crying."
 
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