Christmas Songs And Their Stories

You may visit the author's website at www.christmassongsandtheirstories.com.

CHRISTMAS SONGS AND THEIR STORIES is an invitingly written and thoroughly interesting selection of facts about Christmas songs from different countries and different racial backgrounds. In addition to presenting the complete words, with variations in some cases, of 54 songs, it gives the origins of the songs, the stories of the writers and composers wherever possible, and offers pertinent information on where music for the songs may be found today.

Here is a book for those who enjoy Christmas music and like to read how different peoples at different times have expressed the spirit that makes this holy day so well loved. It will also be warmly appreciated by those who have been aware that there has been no other book available dealing with more than half a dozen or a dozen of Christmas songs, their history, special characteristics, content, or suitability for use in special ways.

Included in this outstanding collection are such beautiful and widely varying songs as “Away in a Manger”; “Watchman, Tell Us of the Night”; “The Boar’s Head Carol”; “Go, Tell It on the Mountains”; “O Holy Night!”; “Brahms’s Cradle Song (Christmas Version)”; and many others—familiar songs such as “O Come, All Ye Faithful” and “Deck the Halls,” and such unusual ones as “He Became Incarnate,” a Christmas carol in India. The international flavor of the book is vividly emphasized with the “National and racial grouping” of selections given at the end of the volume, while such little known facts as the symbolic meaning of the holly and the ivy, and anecdotes connected with the traditions of certain songs, help bring unusual interest to the book.

The careful scholarship and convenient arrangement of the material make the book of particular value to church and Sunday school workers, ministers, and leaders of nonchurch groups preparing Christmas programs. The appealing stories of the creation of some of the world’s best-loved music and poetry make it a book to be appreciated and used not only on Christmas time, but during the rest of the year, and not only as a dependable volume reference and information, but as source of pure enjoyment.