3 ms·

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, and Carol of the Bells are my favorites.

cvwright 8y ago
Nice choices! IMO the best Christmas songs have a mix of joy and something.. else. Something a little eerie. Not quite foreboding, exactly, but definitely a bit tense. From a certain perspective, maybe this is theologically correct to have a mix of "Yay Jesus is coming!" and also at the same time "Oh shit, he's coming here?!?" For those from other faith traditions, imagine you hear that your CEO is finally going to visit your little under-appreciated department. "Yay!" you think. Then they tell you, "Yeah, cool huh? He's waiting in your office."
- DanAndersen 8y ago
  Agreed! My favorite Christmas carols are the ones that aren't just marking a jolly merry festival, but have that "foreboding" melancholy potency you describe. I think G. K. Chesteron did a good job of capturing the sense of it, in his "The Everlasting Man" [0]: >Christmas for us in Christendom has become one thing, and in one sense even a simple thing. But like all the truths of that tradition, it is in another sense a very complex thing. Its unique note is the simultaneous striking of many notes; of humility, of gaiety, of gratitude, of mystical fear, but also of vigilance and of drama. [...] There is something defiant in it also; something that makes the abrupt bells at midnight sound like the great guns of a battle that has just been won. All this indescribable thing that we call the Christmas atmosphere only bangs in the air as something like a lingering fragrance or fading vapor from the exultant, explosion of that one hour in the Judean hills nearly two thousand years ago. But the savor is still unmistakable, and it is something too subtle or too solitary to be covered by our use of the word peace. By the very nature of the story the rejoicings in the cavern were rejoicings in a fortress or an outlaws den; properly understood it is not unduly flippant to say they were rejoicing in a dug-out. It is not only true that such a subterranean chamber was a hiding-place from enemies; and that the enemies were already scouring the stony plain that lay above it like a sky. It is not only that the very horse-hoofs of Herod might in that sense have passed like thunder over the sunken head of Christ. It is also that there is in that image a true idea of an outpost, of a piercing through the rock and an entrance into an enemy territory. There is in this buried divinity an idea of undermining the world; of shaking the towers and palaces from below; even as Herod the great king felt that earthquake under him and swayed with his swaying palace. [0] http://www.worldinvisible.com/library/chesterton/everlasting/part2c1.htm http://www.worldinvisible.com/library/chesterton/everlasting...
  - tenaciousDaniel 8y ago
    Never read GK Chesterton, but now I guess I have to. Dude wrote the hell out of that passage.
  - byset 8y ago
    Never thought I’d come across a long Chesterton passage on HN. Hooray!
- tenaciousDaniel 8y ago
  Ah yeah. O Holy Night is the perfect example. It starts off soft and soothing, then transforms into something that sounds foreboding, and then finishes with something that sounds triumphant. It's marvelous.
- bitwize 8y ago
  To outsiders, Christianity can seem downright Lovecraftian in the terror it inspires. Ever see Evangelion?
  - gjm11 8y ago
    Then you might enjoy this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Very_Scary_Solstice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Very_Scary_Solstice and its successor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Even_Scarier_Solstice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Even_Scarier_Solstice -- much of the content of both can be found on YouTube. I particularly enjoyed Death to the World.
felipemnoa 8y ago
Don't forget about Joy To The World. And it'll be 300 years young next year according to wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joy_to_the_World https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joy_to_the_World
- burfog 8y ago
  The First Noel is thought to date back to the early modern period, which runs from about 1453 to 1789. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_First_Noel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_First_Noel

Nice choices! IMO the best Christmas songs have a mix of joy and something.. else. Something a little eerie. Not quite foreboding, exactly, but definitely a bit tense. From a certain perspective, maybe this is theologically correct to have a mix of "Yay Jesus is coming!" and also at the same time "Oh shit, he's coming here?!?" For those from other faith traditions, imagine you hear that your CEO is finally going to visit your little under-appreciated department. "Yay!" you think. Then they tell you, "Yeah, cool huh? He's waiting in your office."

DanAndersen 8y ago
Agreed! My favorite Christmas carols are the ones that aren't just marking a jolly merry festival, but have that "foreboding" melancholy potency you describe. I think G. K. Chesteron did a good job of capturing the sense of it, in his "The Everlasting Man" [0]: >Christmas for us in Christendom has become one thing, and in one sense even a simple thing. But like all the truths of that tradition, it is in another sense a very complex thing. Its unique note is the simultaneous striking of many notes; of humility, of gaiety, of gratitude, of mystical fear, but also of vigilance and of drama. [...] There is something defiant in it also; something that makes the abrupt bells at midnight sound like the great guns of a battle that has just been won. All this indescribable thing that we call the Christmas atmosphere only bangs in the air as something like a lingering fragrance or fading vapor from the exultant, explosion of that one hour in the Judean hills nearly two thousand years ago. But the savor is still unmistakable, and it is something too subtle or too solitary to be covered by our use of the word peace. By the very nature of the story the rejoicings in the cavern were rejoicings in a fortress or an outlaws den; properly understood it is not unduly flippant to say they were rejoicing in a dug-out. It is not only true that such a subterranean chamber was a hiding-place from enemies; and that the enemies were already scouring the stony plain that lay above it like a sky. It is not only that the very horse-hoofs of Herod might in that sense have passed like thunder over the sunken head of Christ. It is also that there is in that image a true idea of an outpost, of a piercing through the rock and an entrance into an enemy territory. There is in this buried divinity an idea of undermining the world; of shaking the towers and palaces from below; even as Herod the great king felt that earthquake under him and swayed with his swaying palace. [0] http://www.worldinvisible.com/library/chesterton/everlasting/part2c1.htm http://www.worldinvisible.com/library/chesterton/everlasting...
- tenaciousDaniel 8y ago
  Never read GK Chesterton, but now I guess I have to. Dude wrote the hell out of that passage.
- byset 8y ago
  Never thought I’d come across a long Chesterton passage on HN. Hooray!
tenaciousDaniel 8y ago
Ah yeah. O Holy Night is the perfect example. It starts off soft and soothing, then transforms into something that sounds foreboding, and then finishes with something that sounds triumphant. It's marvelous.
bitwize 8y ago
To outsiders, Christianity can seem downright Lovecraftian in the terror it inspires. Ever see Evangelion?
- gjm11 8y ago
  Then you might enjoy this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Very_Scary_Solstice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Very_Scary_Solstice and its successor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Even_Scarier_Solstice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Even_Scarier_Solstice -- much of the content of both can be found on YouTube. I particularly enjoyed Death to the World.

felipemnoa 8y ago

Don't forget about Joy To The World. And it'll be 300 years young next year according to wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joy_to_the_World https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joy_to_the_World

burfog 8y ago
The First Noel is thought to date back to the early modern period, which runs from about 1453 to 1789. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_First_Noel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_First_Noel