Published By: : TimeLife
Victorian era illustration of carol singing in bleak midwinter setting.
1900

These are three of my favorite Christmas songs and of course I have little stories for the reason I love them just a little more then others:

The Boar’s Head is a straight up let’s make Merry and have a good time song.  I only listen to it when I’m already in a good mood because I never ever want to associate it with feeling sad:

The Christmas song that isn’t a Christmas song-It’s actually an anti-war song.

I listened to this a lot when the US went into Iraq, I listened to it a lot when Trump actually won the election  in 2017 and I listened to it a lot when Trump lost the election and  up to the time he attempted his  coup d’état.

But when we went into lockdown and my world- what there was of it at that point was gone-poof just like that this song took on a new meaning for me.

I just love it. It’s seen me through some hard times :

It’s not so much the lyrics that I love about this song- it’s the melody. The choir’s voice reminds me of the nights when I would be walking my dog and it would start to snow. The wind would be blowing a little and I could feel the snow landing on my face. Then my dog- one of many that I was lucky enough to have in my life would look up at me  and in that moment the world felt and looked still and quiet and perfect.

And a little sad.

Mark Edwards