A little more than three years ago, my friend Ryan found inspiration in a photo. The image showed a crowded English pub full of patrons singing Christmas carols with great enthusiasm — a merry company, singing their hearts out in celebration of the newborn King. “We should do this!” Ryan said, showing me the photo. “We totally should!” I agreed. “We can do it right here,” he said, his sweeping gesture taking in his apartment. At once he began the planning: “I’ll make wassail. Will you play trombone? We need brass for Christmas.”

And so Ryan’s annual caroling party was born. He invited a bunch of friends. He and his wife generously opened their home to the event. He made the best wassail that has been brewed since the Middle Ages. That first year, he and I met several times to practice the music — I remember sessions in his basement, crouched beneath the hissing pipes, and in the freezing backyard, huddled around a bonfire, with an amp for his guitar.

Caroling Party 2013

The actual party was held in the living room, where people could be comfortable. Babies and toddlers were as welcome as their grownup counterparts — only a childlike spirit was required to get the full benefit from the evening. People brought food and drinks. We were committed to doing the carols that some of us had loved as children but that are all too often overlooked in these modern times. Our lineup went something like this (with variations in the order):

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

It Came Upon the Midnight Clear

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

In the Bleak Midwinter

Bring a Torch (This one always delights everyone, and it ends much too quickly!)

Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming

What Child Is This

O Come, All Ye Faithful

The Friendly Beasts

Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silent

Good King Wenceslas (also known as “Fred’s song”)

Angels We Have Heard On High

Silent Night

Joy to the World

Yes, we really do all those, and no, it does not feel long at all. You’d be surprised at how the evening flies by! We generally take one break somewhere in the middle, and we try to alternate slower songs with livelier ones. We sing all the verses.

Caroling

So that first year, the accompaniment was trombone and guitar. The second year, Julie had come into the picture, and she played guitar, freeing up Ryan to sing and play banjo. This was our third year, and we were blessed with Susannah’s utterly amazing violin! The guitar and trombone allied themselves with a mandolin, a ukelele, and even a tin whistle on a couple tunes. Every year, people ask about this event for weeks in advance. This time, we moved the venue from Ryan’s apartment to Susannah’s.

Two highlights this time around were:

1. Going out into the street afterward to sing and play “Silent Night” one more time, for the neighborhood.

2. Singing “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence” mostly a cappella (instruments on the first verse only). I’ve always liked that one, but I’d never experienced it in quite this way before. It’s an eerie song — or maybe unearthly is a better description. It’s the Book of Revelation in a hymn. The littlest child among us got a bit scared before it was over, and I think we all had gooseflesh. I’m not sure the recording (see below) will do it justice, but it was thundering. We sang it in the dimness of a glad room on the threshold of Christmas, all of us facing one another but staring into spaces Beyond . . . It reminded me of the Dwarves singing in the dark hobbit hole on the night before the Adventure. And that’s the spirit of Advent, isn’t it? Heaven is coming; the Word walks among us on human feet. The Adventure begins, and none of us will ever again be quite the hobbits that we were.

If you’ll click below, you should be able to see and hear our renditions of two hymns. Be warned that our “Angels We Have Heard on High” gets very silly — a custom of this caroling party is to sing the last stanza of the final song in funny voices. A merry and blessed Christmas to all!

Let all mortal flesh keep silence from Julie Allman on Vimeo.