"Joy to the world, the Lord is come
Let earth receive her king.
Let every heart, prepare Him room,
and heaven and nature sing
and heaven and nature sing
and heaven, and heaven and nature sing"
Where in our daily life are we able to hear good, old-fashioned, Jesus-centered Christmas carols? Sometime in November one of the music stations I check every now and then had switched to Christmas songs for the season. Now it was shortly after Halloween and I thought, no thanks...too early. Then about Thanksgiving as the "yuletide" spirit was coming upon me I checked back into the forementioned station. "Jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell rock..." Then next up, a song I didn't recognize... Over the next couple days I would check in and sure enough...not one REAL Christmas Carol.
Last year Julie and I decided we wanted to be a family that knows and sings all the cool Christmas carols. So I got on line and began copying and pasting the lyrics to various Christmas carols and placed them in 2 column format on a Word document. We included 15 or so songs, printed out multiple copies and each night after our "Jesse Tree" time, we would end the evening singing 2 or 3 carols off of the song sheet. I am not a great singer but I can lead some caroling and as long as you don't start too low or too high with your first note, you can sing a song and it doesn't sound all that bad.
After just a few nights we knew we had a winning tradition in this one. How many families sing together these days??? It is like something out of a Norman Rockwell picture from the days of radio theater and the 1930s. Yet, we Zilkies, never afraid to be the contrarians, continued it again this year as well. Jonathan is now reading the words and both he and David are singing stronger and better each night. And Sweet Caroline...she loves "Go Tell It On A Mountain" and has a little dance she does as we sing.
Seriously, it only gets better as we learn the verses of the songs and improve in our singing. Be careful, one of these days the Zilkies may end up on your front porch singing your favorite Christmas carol. Just ask our new neighbors here in Affton. :-)
*If this idea/tradition interests you, it really is easy. If you need help with the singing, download a bunch of carols onto your iPod or mp3 player and let them help you as you sing. If you are looking for some fun and meaningful traditions for the family, singing carols together is a must. If you ever come to the Zilkies during the month of December, you will be able to join us for an evening of the Jesse Tree and some singing of carols as well.
1 comment:
My family still sings! My parents always made us sing at least 3 songs around the Christmas tree before we started to open presents. This past weekend, my sisters, dad, aunt and uncle were in the kitchen doing some baking and we broke out into Christmas songs...we had a great time!
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