A multilingual Merry Christmas to all of you who celebrate it.
Or if you prefer, Happy Holidays, Jolly Yuletide, Seasons Greetings, Happy Friday, 行憲紀念日快樂! (Happy Constitution Day – for readers in Taiwan).
Here’s a version of ‘We Wish You a Merry Christmas’ I wrote yesterday. I was inspired by a friend who re-wrote of ‘We Three Kings’. It references other songs written by me and my friends.
‘We Wish You a Merry Christmas’ is a traditional English carol from the south west of England that has been around is various guises at least since the 19th century. More details.
Here are a few other Christmasy songs I found recently on YouTube that I thought I’d share with you:
The Carol of the Bells has been popping up in my feed quite a bit. It is based on the Ukrainian song Щедрик (Shchedryk):
Here’s a rather different version:
This is not exactly a Christmas song, but does have a Christmasy theme, and is a lot of fun to watch and listen to. It is by Nanowar of Steel, an Italian band, and was inspired by the IKEA catalogue. How many languages can you spot in it?
A couple of other Christmasy songs that I quite like:
I would say ‘chrimble’ and never ‘chrimbo’. Is this dialectal in modern English? I come from the North of England (originally Yorkshire). For a non-religious description I like ‘Yuletide’ which originally meant ‘time of festivals’.
I’ve heard both Chrimbo and Chrimble – I’m originally from Lancashire, and I think I first heard Chrimbo and Daddy Chrimbo from my cousins in Kent.
I wonder if it’s arisen because people in the London area pronounce an L at the end of words as a vowel?
That’s possible. Or maybe I just misheard them.