Solstice: December 21
Christmas: December 25
Hanukkah: this year, sundown December 25 – sundown January 2
Kwanzaa: December 26 – January 1
New Year: January 1
1500s: A Haunting Song
The Coventry Carol, 1534
Traditional
With a haunting melody, it’s about Herod’s massacre of babies. See our holiday issues on the Massacre of the Innocents.
O sisters too, how may we do
For to preserve this day
This poor youngling for whom we sing,
"Bye bye, lully, lullay"?
Herod the king, in his raging,
Chargèd he hath this day
His men of might in his own sight
All young children to slay.
That woe is me, poor child, for thee
And ever mourn and may
For thy parting neither say nor sing,
"Bye bye, lully, lullay."
1800s: Traditional Carols
O Holy Night, 1843 / 1855
Written in French by Placide Chapeau / Translated into English by John Sullivan Dwight
Dwight added this third verse, which made it popular among abolitionists of the time:
Truly He taught us to love one another;
His law is love and His Gospel is Peace
Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother
And in His name, all oppression shall cease
There’s also a story which may or may not be true but at least has made the rounds. In the 1870 Franco-Prussian War, on Christmas Eve the French troops sang this uplifting song (French version, of course) across the trenches during a truce in hostilities.
It Came Upon a Midnight Clear, 1849
Written by Massachusetts pastor Edmund Sears
The poem was written with violent revolutions in Europe and the recent war between the United States and Mexico in mind, accounting for anti-war sentiment throughout. This was most explicit in Verse 3:
Yet with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long;
Beneath the angel-strain have rolled
Two thousand years of wrong;
And man, at war with man, hears not
The love-song which they bring;
O hush the noise, ye men of strife,
And hear the angels sing.
I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day, 1864
Written on Christmas day by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Edward K Hermann gives the full story with a performance of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir
Longfellow had suffered personal tragedy, but this was also written with the U.S. Civil War raging and uppermost on his mind.
I heard the bells on Christmas day
Their old familiar carols play
And mild and sweet their songs repeat
Of peace on Earth, good will to men
And in despair I bowed my head
"There is no peace on Earth, " I said
For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on Earth, good will to men
Then rang the bells more loud and deep
God is not dead, nor doth He sleep
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on Earth, good will to men
1900s: Modern Takes
Do You Hear What I Hear?, 1962
Words by Noël Regney, music by Gloria Shayne, husband and wife
“Pray for peace people everywhere”
This carol was written at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis and was a response to the dangers of nuclear annihilation. There were double meanings throughout. “A star, dancing in the night, with a tail as big as a kite” could be the Star of Bethlehem, but authors were thinking of a nuclear missile as well.
From The Atlantic:
“In the studio, the producer was listening to the radio to see if we had been obliterated,” Regney once explained.
“En route to my home, I saw two mothers with their babies in strollers. The little angels were looking at each other and smiling.” This inspired the first line of the song: “Said the night wind to the little lamb . . .”
Happy Xmas (War is Over), 1969
by John Lennon
In the middle of the American war in Vietnam and the movement to stop it, along with the Civil Rights movement, Lennon wrote a song that’s explicit about opposing war and racism. As with much of good poetry, it applies to other historical periods as well and so remains commonly sung today. Verse 2:
And so this is Christmas (War is over)
For weak and for strong (If you want it)
The rich and the poor ones (War is over)
The road is so long (Now)
And so happy Christmas (War is over)
For black and for white (If you want it)
For yellow and red ones (War is over)
Let's stop all the fight (Now)
Christmas In the Trenches, written before 1984
Written by John McCutcheon
McCutcheon was inspired to write this about the 1914 Christmas Truce, when soldiers up and down the line of trenches in Europe took Christmas a little more seriously than their superiors did. A good version with story: Christmas in the Trenches (1984). McCutcheon clearly wrote it well before then, since he refers to reactions from men who experienced the Truce when he sang the song in concert.
Also on the same topic:
Pipes of Peace with Paul McCartney.
Celtic Thunder offers Christmas 1915. They have the wrong year, but the art still has the spirit of it.
A movie dramatization: Joyeux Noel
And our own blog post: The Christmas Truce of 1914
This is a list of holiday editions of our weekly e-newsletter, Peace & Life Connections.
In 2023, we covered Kwanzaa.
In 2022, the topic was the Christmas Truce of 1914, when World War I soldiers up and down the line treated each other as friends rather than enemies for the holidays.
In 2021, there was a somber topic, but one appropriate to the season: the Massacre of the Innocents, and its role in quotations and art that oppose massive violence of all kinds.
In 2020, given what was most on people’s minds at the time, we covered Pandemics Related to Christmas.
In 2019, we showed Christmas as a Nonviolent Alternative to Imperialism.
In 2018, we detailed Strong Women against Violence – Connected to the Holidays.
In 2017, we covered Interfaith Peace in the Womb.
In 2016, we discussed how “The Magi were Zoroastrians” and detailed how good the Zoroastrians were on consistent-life issues. The ancient roots of the consistent life ethic run deep!
In 2015, we had a list of good holiday movies with consistent-life themes – check it out for what you might want to see this season. We also had information on Muslim nonviolent perspectives.
In 2014, we offered a quotation from a lesser-known Christmas novella of Charles Dickens and cited the treatment of abortion in the Zoroastrian scriptures.
In 2013, we shared several quotations reflecting on Christmas.
In 2012, we had a couple of quotes showing the pro-life aspects of two prominent Christmas tales: A Christmas Carol with Ebenezer Scrooge, and the movie It’s a Wonderful Life. We also quote from John Dear about Jesus as peacemaker and Rand Paul about the 1914 spontaneous Christmas Truce; he then related it to the culture of life.
In 2011, we covered the materialism-reducing “Advent Conspiracy" - http://www.adventconspiracy.org/ and offered two pieces of children’s art: a 1939 anti-war cartoon called “Peace on Earth,” and the anti-war origins of “Horton Hears a Who,” whose tagline – “a person’s a person, no matter how small” – is irresistible to pro-lifers.
In 2010, we showed “It’s a Wonderful Movement” by using the theme of what would happen if the peace movement and the pro-life movement hadn’t arisen. We also had quotes from Scrooge (against respect for life) and a Martin Luther King Christmas sermon.
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