You Could Go Christmas Caroling Tonight

Tonight, you could go Christmas caroling.

You don’t need an official group. You don’t need an appointment. You don’t need props. You don’t even need flashlights and song books, if you’re willing to be humble and just sing first verses, which is about all that people standing in the door want to hear, anyway.

Gather together some friends, go ring on likely doorbells, and break into song.

A verse or two of whichever carols you happen know, then, “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” and on to the next door.

That’s all.

You could do that.

***

You know those documentaries about quaint foreign cultures, where the natives teach their children their traditional songs, and they have festivals and they sing those songs?

We have songs. We have traditional songs for this time of year. If we sing them, our children will learn them. We have traditional festive practices, like going out caroling. We can be those native people, doing our thing, not letting our culture die off, even now that all the villages have TV.

Since we are a pluralistic culture, we can use clues like, “What kind of decorations have my neighbors put on their door, if any?” to guess what kind of songs, if any, will be appreciated. Since we are an atomized, fragmented, un-neighborly culture, it’s unlikely anyone will even recognize you. Shyness is no excuse.

Go sing. You’ll be glad you did it, and other people will be thankful you remembered them this year, when maybe no one else in the whole world did.