Over the years, community Carol singing has been an integral part of my Christmas experience. The first time I ever went Carol Singing, it was with my dad straight after the Church Carol service, we walked around the village and ended up at one of the big houses, where we received hot drinks and mince pies or a slice of Christmas cake. The following year, we came out at the end of the service to torrential rain and to my knowledge, that put an end to that plan. I don’t know whether it was less convenient for us as a family, but it was a few years before my next experience. I guess that it would have been in the early seventies when we would meet at chapel mid week and walk around the village singing carols outside peoples homes. In those days we ended up at the manse for hot drinks and cakes. I remember one particular year when there had already been an appreciable fall of snow and snow was still falling as we slipped and slid out way around, I can remember feeling freezing cold.
Soon after meeting Karen, whom I later married, we started going out carol singing on Christmas Eve, I can honestly say that I have seen Father Christmas doing his work as large presents were carried around the streets under cover of darkness. Carol singing was a real experience, I remember one year when we arrived at our first house and struck up with our first Carol Once in royal David’s city, we threw our heart and soul into singing and reached a point wher we had run out of words and still some tune left over, we then realised what we had done, we had started singing Once Royal to the tune of Hark the herald angels sing, try it out, the words fit, almost. We would return to Church, have a jacket potato and a cuppa and then share in the midnight communion service.
I have had a variety of experiences of community carol singing since moving to East Anglia, I have stood outside in the pouring rain, in the freezing cold and chortled my way through dozens of carols, singing outside shops, outside Churches, in Care homes and even trundling around one village on the back of a tractor and trailer. Looking back to my teenage years, I was normally happy enough to wander around the streets of the village under the cover of darkness, ideally ensuring that not of my friends saw me. There was one year that the leaders of the Church suggested that we sing carols outside the co-op in the village, I was possibly about sixteen, seventeen at the time and wasn’t at all keen on the idea.
I guess that over the years my attitude to carol singing has changed, today I see it as an important activity at Christmas, we have been silenced over the last two Christmases because of the Pandemic in some places. Last year, smaller groups went out, complying with Covid regulations at that time. I have come to appreciate over the years how important memories are and as I look back over many years, I have such happy memories about Carol singing. I think that my message for Christmas 2021 is this, don’t simply live through the experiences of Christmas 2021, make memories for years to come.
A prayer for this week: Find a few moments to stop, be quiet and think for a moment or two.
As Christmas gets ever closer, we pray for the people of the world, remembering particularly those who find this Christmas difficult, those who have lost somebody they love, those who feel lonely, those who are struggling with the whole pandemic experience. May Christmas 2021 be a time of joy, peace, and love.