My favorite Christmas texts

I know you have perhaps been dreading the moment when I post my long-winded list of favorite Christmas texts and my commentary on them. But a promise is a promiseso I am posting them. And you are in luck, because I managed to narrow this list down to five as well. so it won't be quite as long winded as it could be. although I suppose you could always just skip reading it as well. I won't be offended if you skim. The writing is my therapy, reading it doesn't have to be yours!



5. This verse of "Away in a Manger":

Be near me Lord Jesus,

I ask you to stay

Close by me forever

And love me I pray.



I didn't have to cut out the hymns on this list, quite simply because then there wouldn't have been a list. And I absolutely love it when the text of music is an actual prayer. It's my favorite form for hymn texts actually. And yes, I am just enough of a dork to have a favorite hymn form. So there.



4. This next one requires some explanantion. I love Tennyson. He wrote a wonderful piece at the passing of a dear friend, from which we get the text of "Ring out Wild Bells" But the poetry is much more extensive than the hymn that we know. This is the poem from which we get the line "T'is better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all." In fact, we usually sing this at the new year, and we ususally ignore some of the nonsensical stuff that is in it. But the poem in its entirety fits Easter and Christmas much better than new year. And the section we use is actually quite profound in the context of the poem. I couldn't quote all of it here, it's far too long and involved. But here are a few of my favorite stanzas:

Strong Son of God, immortal Love,
Whom we , that have not seen Thy face,
By faith, and faith alone, embrace,
Believing where we cannot prove.


We have but faith: we cannot know,
For knowledge is of things we see;
And yet we trust it comes from Thee,
A beam in darkness: let it grow.


The time draws near the birth of Christ
The moon is hid; the night is still;
The Christmas bells from hill to hill
Answer each other in the mist.


Four voices of four hamlets round,
From far and near, on mead and moor,
Swell out and fail, as if a door
Were shut between me and the sound:


Each voice four changes on the wind,
That now dilate, and now decrease,
Peace and good-will, good-will and peace,
Peace and good-will, to all mankind.


Then echo-like our voices rang;
We sung, tho' every eye was dim,
A merry song we sang with him
Last year: impetuously we sang:

We ceased: a gentler feeling crept
Upon us: surely rest is meet.
"They rest," we said, "their sleep is sweet,"
And silence follow'd, and we wept.


Our voices took a higher range;
Once more we sang: "They do not die
Nor lose their mortal sympathy,
Nor change to us, although they change


Rise, happy morn, rise, holy morn
Draw forth the cheerful day from night:
O Father, touch the east, and light
The Light that shone when Hope was born.


Now do you see where the wild bells come from? They are the church bells that remind a family of happier Christmases. The poem continues on, and there are at least 12 more stanzas that I would like to add, but I fear I am losing your attention. The poem takes up pages 119-195 in my "Norton Critical Poets: Tennyson Edition", so if you really want to hear more of it, find it at your local library (or maybe you could google search it... but I have never found the entire thing, just segments online.



Or, you could just be not as much of a dork as me, and move on.


3. You couldn't escape this. It's a French text. We know it as "Whence is that Goodly Fragrance Flowing" but in French it is "Quelle est cette odeur agreable" If you read the cognates correctly, you see that it's more of an agreeable odor than a goodly fragrance. But that's beside the point

A Bethléem, dans une crêche
Il vient de vous naitre-un Sauveur
allons, que rien ne vous empâche
D'adorer votre redémpteur
A Bethléem, dans une crêche,
Il vient de vous naître-un Sauveur.

We sang it in the Paris-Est Stake Choir, and I fell in love with it. I even love the English translation:
Bethlehem there, in manger lying,
Find your Redeemer, haste away
Run ye with eager footsteps flying
Worship the Savior born today
Bethlehem there, in manger lying,
Find your Redeemer, haste away.


2. In the Bleak Mid-Winter. I have been accused by those who are extremely picky of being apostate or something because of the "obvious doctrinal inaccuracies" (say it in a know-it-all, judgemental kind of a voice.) But I think that anyone who picks at that misses the entire point of the last verse.

What can I give Him
Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd,
I would bring a lamb.
If I were a wise man,
I would do my part.
What can I give Him?
I will give my heart.

I know there are deeper texts out there, but this one is, in it's simplicity, one of the most profound expressions of Chirstmas Spirit that exists. I actually fell in love with this text when Hannah and family came caroling one year, and they all backed her up on this verse. (It's not often that a diva soprano decides she likes the sound of another soprano.) Hannah singing this inspired me. She didn't throw in any of the excess baggage that sopranos tend to use. Someday when I am directing a fantastic children's choir, I will have them sing this one. Can't you hear the little treble voices, unencumbered by nasty grown up vibratos and foul pronunciation, singing this verse?

Are you ready for my number one favorite? Do you have any guesses or expectations? You should already know this one really.

1. The First Noel. Not only is it French, in the hymnbook, and has great moving harmony parts, on top of all that, there is an amazing arrangement of it that I absolutely cannot get enough of. I listen to it on repeat when I've had a bad day. I put it on my Easter CD mix, my Christmas CD mix, my sing along CD mix, and my practice/current repertoire CD mis for the last 4 years running. I listen to it when it snows, when I drink cocoa, and when I read late at night.

Its one that I sang in that fantastic choir I wrote about at Thanksgiving, and so not only do I still have the text engrained in my being, I also go to sing the soprano part with a fairly large choir, which is an adrenaline high that repeats a little in my tummy every time I hear it. Here's the best verse:

Then let us all with one accord

Sing praises to our Heavenly Lord

That He this glorious Earth hath wrought

And with His blood mankind Hath bought.

Noel.