Another one of those days when I vowed that my only going out would be for a walk and to tutor.
As luck, or fate, or whatever you like to call it, would have it, the iron conked out after lunch. I was not ironing my lunch, but clothes. I suppose I could have folded them and laid them flat underneath my mattress for a couple of hours, but that never works that well.
Taking my life in my hands, I sent off for another dash.
And then I heard them. Carol singers. I suppose it made a change from Christmas muzak. And then I listened.
It was as intelligible as the minions singing Christmas songs.
Which made me wonder, why on earth we sing Christmas songs. Christmas carols, I get. I understand. But why Christmas songs? And, why have we managed to conflate songs with carols?
Carols were sung well before Christianity took a hold. They were songs and dances, sung by pagans for mark each season of the year. Some of these customs still exist today in some of the hymns I used to sing at school: All things Bright and Beautiful and We Plough the Fields and Scatter during Harvest Festival time.
Carols were reserved for Christmas. It was drummed into my head that to sing these songs at any other time of the year was bad luck. Goodness knows where that one came from?
I could write more, but I am Bah flipping Humbug Christmas caroled out after my minions encounter.
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