Hymns for Christmas
Everyone knows the tunes. The difficulty is that you have four services and about eight carols people actually want.
Christmas is the one time of year when the congregation outnumbers the regulars and knows the music better than any other Sunday. The planning problem is not finding carols; it is distributing them across three or four services without either repeating everything or saving the good ones for a service nobody attends.
Nine Lessons and Carols
The traditional sequence pairs each lesson with a carol that answers it, moving from the Fall to the Incarnation. A workable parish shape:
| Hymn | Where it sits | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Once in royal David’s city | Processional | Irby. Solo first verse is the convention |
| O come, O come, Emmanuel | After lesson 1 or 2 | The Advent thread, still appropriate here |
| Of the Father’s heart begotten | Middle lessons | Divinum mysterium. Ancient, and worth the effort |
| In the bleak midwinter | Middle lessons | Rossetti; Darke or Holst |
| It came upon the midnight clear | Middle lessons | Noel. Public domain |
| O little town of Bethlehem | Lesson 6 or 7 | Forest Green |
| Hark! the herald angels sing | Late | Mendelssohn |
| O come, all ye faithful | Final lesson | Adeste fideles. The last verse belongs after the ninth lesson |
Midnight mass and Christmas morning
| Service | Character | Keep for it |
|---|---|---|
| Midnight | Quiet, candlelit, largely regulars and returners | O come, all ye faithful, Silent night, O little town |
| Christmas morning | Families, children, short | Hark! the herald angels sing, Away in a manger, Ding dong merrily on high |
| Christmas 1 and 2 | Very small congregations | The carols nobody sang yet — Unto us a boy is born, See amid the winter’s snow |
The twelve days
Christmas runs to Epiphany, and the Sunday after Christmas is still Christmas. Congregations are tiny and it is tempting to let the season evaporate on 26 December. Keeping two good carols back for it costs nothing and is noticed by exactly the people most likely to be lonely that week.
The copyright note
Most of this repertoire is public domain, which is a relief given the print runs. The descants and arrangements very often are not — a Willcocks descant is in copyright even where the carol is not. That affects the choir’s music, not usually the congregation’s words. See hymn words and licences.
Christmas readings, all three years.
Questions
What carols are sung at Nine Lessons and Carols?
Traditionally the service opens with Once in royal David's city and closes with O come, all ye faithful, with carols between the lessons moving from the Fall to the Incarnation — commonly O come, O come, Emmanuel; In the bleak midwinter; O little town of Bethlehem; and Hark! the herald angels sing.
Are Christmas carols in copyright?
Most of the traditional carol texts and tunes are public domain. Descants and modern arrangements frequently are not — a 20th-century descant is in copyright even where the carol itself is not.