December 25: Reflection on Favorite Christmas Carols

Reflection on Favorite Christmas Carols

Have the students, as a class, decide on their five favorite Christmas carols. To help them, take time to actually listen to Christmas carols in class. Doing this out of season will strike some students as "weird," but tell them that doing so is the best way to jog their memory.

After the students have made their selections, assign each of the carols to a small groups of students asking them to do three things:

1. Discuss how this and other Christmas carols might be understood as "infancy narratives," that is, as artistic creations intended to respond to our real needs, just as Matthew's and Luke's narratives responded to the needs of their respective audiences.

2. Identify any lyrics that seem to have their origin in one or both of the infancy narratives.

3. Offer some explanation for the lyrics that are not directly tied to the Scriptures. Why, do you think, did the songwriter include them? Do they make any sense in our contemporary world? If not, why do they still touch us deeply--so deeply that the song was selected as a favorite?

At the end of the small-group work, call everyone together and discuss what the small groups arrived at regarding their respective carols. Then ask the students to name popular Christmas songs that have little or nothing to do with the original meaning of Christmas. Elicit the students' opinions on why those songs are popular.