A Child’s Christmas Carol Confusion
Wonder and Bewilderment in Yuletide Lyrics*
When I was a small child growing up in Georgetown, Ontario, Christmas carols embodied an enchanting mystery – a flurry of twinkling words and sounds that tumbled through the air as delightfully as snowflakes, yet made about as much sense as trying to build a snowman indoors. I remember squishing my face against a frosted window, listening to “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” on CBC radio, utterly befuddled by the prospect of gentlemen needing to be rested, let alone merry – was there a special holiday chaise lounge for them? And what in the world was “tidings of comfort and joy”? It sounded less like a festive greeting and more like a detergent commercial.
The language of carols was an ancient forest, full of words that seemed to belong to elves or wizards rather than my neighbours. “Hark! The herald angels sing” – who was Hark, and why did the angels keep crooning to him? Even “O come, all ye faithful” was confusing; the “ye” threw me, making me wonder why we couldn’t just use “you” like polite Canadians. The phrase “born is the King of Israel” made me imagine babies in crowns, which seemed both uncomfortable and oddly regal.
Then there were the sounds themselves – “fa la la la la” or “ding dong merrily on high” – nonsense syllables that made my tongue tingle with delight but left my mind in a blissful muddle. The rolling “Glorias” in “Angels We Have Heard on High” felt like an avalanche of vowels, a jubilant jumble I could never quite sing in time. “Gloria in excelsis Deo.” Now I had heard “Deo” or its equivalent when Harry Belafonte sang “The Banana Boat Song” ** on Ed Sullivan, but “in excelsis” … I mean really. And I was completely baffled by another verse in “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” that seemed to talk about precious stones: “In Bethlehem, in Jewelry/ This blessed Babe was born.”*** Quite the cradle indeed!
Yet, for all their oddities, those carols were magical incantations, drawing us kids together in anticipation and wonder. Their antique echoes – ye, lo, hark, and fa-la-la – wove a spell as shimmering as icicles and as familiar as the smell of pine and gingerbread. Even if I never quite understood them, as a child, I felt that somewhere between the words, the true spirit and mystery of Christmas was hidden, waiting for me to sing along.
Your friend,
Robert
https://robertmcbrydeauthor.com/
*Imagine how bizarre these carols sounded to my beloved Anne, who arrived in Vancouver at 10 years of age from Czechoslovakia, with nary a word of English!
**Harry Belafonte sang “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song),” a Jamaican folk tune about dockworkers, featuring the iconic “Day-O, day-ay-ay-o” call, with lyrics about working all night and tallying bananas until daylight, a staple from his 1956 album Calypso.
(Call): Day-O, day-ay-ay-o
(Response): Daylight come and me wan’ go home.
***My childhood experience with “Bethlehem, in Jewelry” recalls that of Sek-Lung from Wayson Choy’s novel The Jade Peony, about a new Canadian of Chinese background who is forced to recite the Lord’s Prayer every day at school in early 20th-century Vancouver and mishears “hallowed be thy name” as “Harold be thy name.”
