Vote for your favourite carol
What is your favourite carol? Vote here. Since we are technically restricted to 10 choices, you may wish to click on No. 10 and post a comment. These have been selected as those which won the last three popular polls in various parts of the UK.
Personally i am sulking because not enough people ever vote for It Came Upon a Midnight Clear for it to feature in our list. ...
Voting closes on Thursday December 20, results announced on Friday December 21.
See Times Online for Carol Serice times and dates and the top Carols being sung this year in churches across Britain.
It has got to be Silent Night- fully ecumenical and perfectly orthodox!
Posted by: Chris Gillibrand | 9 Dec 2007 22:25:33
My favourite Christmas carol is 'Ave Maria' ~ not listed in your choices because neither was the Catholic Church. Is choosing to not include the Catholic Church in your original survey not political incorrectness? Shame on you.
Posted by: Kathleen Obara | 10 Dec 2007 15:05:32
Hi Kathleen,
Thanks for your comments. Unfortunately the Catholic Church in England and Wales Network, along with the Elim Pentecostal Church were unable to provide details for the survey.
Joanna
Posted by: Joanna Sugden | 10 Dec 2007 15:47:05
Charles Wesley actually wrote:
'Hark the herald-angels sing'
(to rhyme with 'King').
The misprint hasn't stopped me voting for it.
Posted by: RoyC | 10 Dec 2007 17:31:31
My all time favourite is O Holy Night as it encapsulates the entire gospel message and meaning of Christs coming. It's beautiful music too and it's the one carol that has me in tears!
Posted by: Mark Gregory | 11 Dec 2007 23:56:44
So why will Hark the Herald Angels Sing win?
Because it's the last song in the Christmas Carol Service and reminds people of the holiday that will start as soon as the carol service is over.
Posted by: Sjarifuddin Zaluski | 12 Dec 2007 07:39:55
Mine is "It Came upon a Midnight Clear" as well - I always tear up at "Oh hush the noise, ye men of strife, and hear the angels sing!"
Posted by: Jonathan Trueman | 12 Dec 2007 10:37:55
I also vote for "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear". I agree with Jonathan Trueman about the one line. It gets me every time too.
Posted by: Fascinating Canuck | 12 Dec 2007 16:07:04
why wasnt the ever popular O come O come Emmanuel not in the list? Were you ruling out advent carols?
Posted by: yvonne R. | 12 Dec 2007 17:19:30
My favourite is not on the list. It's O Holy Night. Is it really so unpopular??
Posted by: purple | 12 Dec 2007 21:08:22
I really love "In the Bleak Midwinter", to either setting. Or "Three Kings from Persian lands afar", which I fell in love with when hearing one of my fellow A level music students sing it at the carol service. Beautiful.
Posted by: Chris | 12 Dec 2007 21:45:29
I love carols full stop. My two most favourite, though, are not sung nearly enough and they are 'O come, O come Emmannuel' and 'O Holy Night'.
Posted by: Katherine | 13 Dec 2007 20:08:17
Actually Charles Wesley wrote:
"Hark! how all the welkin rings,
Glory to the King of kings."
('welkin' is an old word for sky)George Whitefield changed the beginning to what we have now and also added the two-line refrain in 1753.
My favourite is "Thou who was rich beyond all splendour", Frank Houghton's hymn based on 2 Corinthians 8:9 and sung to the French tune "Quelle est cette odeur agreable" - a tune well known to opera lovers (Gay's "The Beggar's Opera").
Posted by: Terry Hamblin | 15 Dec 2007 10:20:27
I love the loud ones and I love the soft ones. "O Holy Night" may be my favorite loud one. It has one of the most beautiful melodies I have ever heard in my life -- a hairs-at-the-back-of-your-neck-rise-up kind of beauty. Of the soft ones I'd go with "A Stable Lamp is Lighted," lyrics by Richard Wilbur and the tune by David Hurd. It's the humility of the Incarnation wishpered like a rumor of holiness too tremendous to speak -- yet all the powers of nature sing it softly -- if you will just quiet and listen.
Both carols feel like little miracles themselves -- they embody what they portray.
And just for the record --lots of non-Roman Catholics love "Ave Maria." Mary is -- well-- holy for most Christians. Isn't she?
Posted by: ThriceBroad | 15 Dec 2007 16:33:04
We wish You A Merry Christmas is a terrific, happy, joyful xmas song. Now...bring us some figgy pudding, right here!!!
Posted by: frank | 16 Dec 2007 08:02:52
Ave Maria
Posted by: Lucia | 19 Dec 2007 08:24:53
Well your list won't show up for me, and I haven't seen Hymns Ancient & Modern in a long while, but one of my favorite carols from British sources is Christians Awake Salute the Happy Morn, lots of vigor and not too wide a spread for untrained voices. Wake up, ladies & gents!
Happy Christmas from upstate New York.
Posted by: Linda | 19 Dec 2007 17:14:46
I voted for Hark the Herald and my son wanted to vote for Away in a Manger, but it would only let us vote once, so here is a "comment vote"
Posted by: Catriona | 19 Dec 2007 18:26:57
Disappointed that you missed my favorite.
"God Rest ye Merry Gentlmen"
Posted by: AJS | 19 Dec 2007 22:38:05
Although not technically a Christmas carol, it's really an Advent hymn, my favorite is O, Come, O Come, Emmanuel.
Posted by: margaret | 20 Dec 2007 03:10:26
It came upon a midnight clear. We sang it last night in church and I really felt the relevance to our current conflict and strife in the world.
Posted by: KT | 20 Dec 2007 10:57:28