Christmas caroling
Picture this: Gather a group of friends, walk closely up and down the streets of your town, stopping at random houses, ringing the doorbell, standing closely on the porch, and singing. With any luck you all crowd inside and share a plate of cookies. No masks anywhere in sight, but lots of hugs and handshakes. If it sounds fabulous it was.
Growing up in a small village didn’t stop us from going Christmas caroling. We would go from house to house, stand outside, sing some carols, and get invited in for a quick treat. Then we would go on to the next house. I loved this tradition, partly because my poor singing voice didn’t really matter outdoors, surrounded by other imperfect singers, but mostly because it was fun sharing the Christmas spirit.
Over my life in ministry I have so many memories of caroling. In Fitzroy Harbour in Ontario we used to get a local farmer to bring a large hay wagon. We would put all the kids on it and drive the wagon around the village, stopping at the houses of seniors to sing. One year that wasn’t so cold, he brought his horses instead of the tractor. It was certainly a highlight of Christmas. Many of the older choir members would also walk with us. A few years later I introduced the idea to another village. We even walked to a seniors residence and sung in the lobby. Again we got great reviews, and touched many hearts. I served a larger church in Ottawa for many years, and I tried caroling there one year, but it wasn’t the same. Only the choir came, and the didn’t want to go into any houses. It was definitely not the same feeling, and we never tried again.
When I returned to the townships we started again in the small village of Hatley. The Sunday school kids loved it and invited their friends. They loved to take turns ringing the doorbell before we started. We made snow angels, threw snowballs, and had great fun. We learned some French songs like “Il est ne le petit enfant”, and we always ended with “We wish you a Merry Christmas”. Back at the church we ended with hot chocolate, cinnamon
rolls and Christmas cookies. those nights.
My favourite caroling story took place in Lennoxville in the early 70s. I was part of the Inter Varsity Christian Fallowship at Bishop’s. We decided to go caroling without any planning and randomly went up and down streets looking for houses with lights on. We stood outside and caroled, but didn’t ask for donations or even treats. We simply moved on to other houses. Many homeowners were totally surprised to see singers at their door. One even wrote
I miss
a thank you letter to the Sherbrooke Record. It was great to read it a few days later. After about 2 hours of caroling we decided to call it quits. We did, however, have one more stop. We went to the Golden Lion Pub, a relatively new stop on the Lennoxville night scene. Inside people were enjoying their beers and were quite surprised to see us standing outside singing Christmas carols. A few even came out to join us. That was one special night. The day will return when we go door to door singing carols, but in the meantime we have great memories.