Christmas Caroling & Defiant Joy

Three years old, wailing in the middle of the living room, refusing to remove my coat. This is one of my earliest memories: the night I was told I couldn’t go Christmas caroling because I had the chicken pox. I was heartbroken, and thought that if I kept my furry blue coat on long enough, my mother would relent.

Decades later, the strange beauty of Christmas caroling still has a strong hold on my heart. It’s a wonderfully strange custom: you go out at the darkest and coldest time of the year, singing songs about light and angels and kings.

As a teenager, I would carol with the college students in my parents’ ministry, piling into cars and stopping to sing in laundromats, dorm lobbies, nursing homes, and convenience stores. In my twenties, I would go with members of my church to the neighborhood surrounding the church buildings.

Until last Christmas, however, it had been at least a decade since I’d gone with a party of carolers. Another family in our neighborhood suggested it, and this year we went again. The walk in the dark, the songs of the king…caroling is just as magical and strange as I remember it. But I realize now that it is also an incredibly powerful practice for embodying Christian hospitality.

The first virtue of caroling is that it requires us to take on the posture of a stranger, even a beggar. Early caroling traditions, such as “wassailing,” actually called upon the host to provide food and drink to the singers, and some songs even take pains to assure listeners that they are festive carolers and neighbors, not “daily beggars who go from door to door.” There would be no need for such reassurance if Christmas carolers and beggars didn’t bear some resemblance. In our divided and suspicious age, it can be frightening to knock on a neighbor’s door — after all, when we was the last time some knocked unexpectedly on your door after dark? The awkwardness, uncertainty, even fear we experience approaching our neighbor’s door should remind us of what it means to be a stranger, and should deepen our understanding of the deep need for welcome.

At the same time, the other great strength of Christmas caroling is that it can become a way to practice hospitality out-of-doors. Most caroling is done with a group, either our families, or (more often), an assorted company of friends, neighbors, and families. In such a company, we are in powerful ways still very much “at home”: oriented, beloved, and known, more pilgrim than exile. Two years in a row I’ve been surprised by how many doors are answered by neighbors who are alone, and I don’t take for granted what a rich social network is necessary to even have friends willing to go caroling with me. The fact that I’m willing to walk through the night singing is a way of proclaiming, “I’m not afraid! I’m not afraid! Look at this cloud of witnesses with me!” When we coming to a door singing, we are not so much begging welcome as we are offering it.

On these virtues alone I would argue that Christmas caroling is a timely, creative, and powerful practice of hospitality. But the fruit of this practice is likely to be even more than renewed empathy. Each year I’ve caroled in my own neighborhood, I’ve met neighbors previously unknown to me, who I now know by name and see often. These connections make me and my neighbors more secure and less lonesome. I’ve also grown closer to the people I caroled with: it’s hard to spend a night singing with someone and not feel at least a little more fond of them. And of course, singing is a powerful way of relieving stress and calming our nervous systems. I set out for this year’s caroling feeling burdened and sad, and returned feeling so very glad and grateful.

Today (December 28) is only the fourth day of Christmas, and so you have eight days left of Christmastide if you’d like to test these claims in our own neighborhood. Here are a few best practices to consider if you haven’t gone caroling before (or haven’t gone in years):

• If you’re feeling awkward about knocking on your neighbors door, consider taking something to give: we handed out mini loaves of banana bread (I multipled this recipe by 3 and it filled 15 mini loaf pans) and a Christmas card. The children in our group loved running ahead to hand out the goodies.

• When you come to a door, ring the bell and then start singing before anyone answers. Most of your neighbors probably aren’t used to nighttime visitors, and hearing Christmas songs will make them less suspicious of an unexpected visitor.

• Pick a song leader who has a reasonable ability to pick a key that won’t be too high or too low for unpracticed singers. The leader should also be the one to decide and signal how many verses of a song to sing. For most houses we did 2 or 3 verses of the classic Christmas carols, but at a few houses where the residents were clearly delighted, we might do two entire songs.

• Have song sheets with lyrics. I made booklets with sheet music from hymnary.org this year, and this made sure everyone was able to sing with confidence.

• Take lights or lanterns. Porch lights might not give enough light to read song sheets. Next year I want to level up by taking candle lanterns!

• Have a pot of mulled cider or cocoa ready at home for the end of the night. Last year one neighbor who didn’t feel up to walking so far volunteered to host all the singers at the end for hot drinks, and it was the perfect end to the night.

The world is full of darkness. Let’s be the people who confront the long night with singing.

Do you have any good caroling stories or tips to share? Did you carol in your neighborhood this year?