A group of us went out to sing carold to shut-ins from our church. We went to a private home and also to one of the long-term care centres in our city.  We sang a variety of carols, some we chose to sing and also one that the person we were visiting requested. Always at the end of the visit, just before we say our good-byes, is We Wish You A Merry Christmas.

A carol that our Sunday school children like— a carol I have always enjoyed since we learned it in school— is  T’was in the Moon of Wintertime. The carol was written in 1643 by a Jesuit priest, Jean de Brébeuf, when he worked with the Huron people. Choosing symbols like hunters would made more sense to the people. Sadly he and his men were tortured and killed when the Iroquois drove the Hurons from their homeland. The carol— originally titled ” Jesous Ahatonhia” meaning Jesus, he is born— resurfaced in Quebec, where the Hurons had resettled. At that time the carol was translated into English from French.