An Advent Carols Countdown

Introduction

It’s hard to imagine Christmas without music. Christmas carols are an integral part of the Christmas celebration in numerous cultures throughout the world and have been written for hundreds of years. Many of the carols we sing year in and year out are hundreds of years old but remain favorites today. And no matter where carols are from, they almost always focus us on the true reason for the season: Our Savior, Jesus Christ. Carols act as a connecting thread of faith between us, our ancestors, and those all over the world who also celebrate the birth of Christ.

Indeed, one of the wonderful things about Christmas carols is that they come from so many different places. Some were written by monks and priests, as you might expect, but others were written by people who were not religious at all. Sometimes those who wrote the lyrics and those who wrote the music lived hundreds of years apart, and sometimes carols were created by adapting existing songs.

An Advent Carols Countdown will help you learn about the origin of carols both familiar and (to some) new. Each day leading up to Christmas, read about a different Christmas carol, and learn some of the history and background of the carol as well as a few details about the people who brought the carol to life.

December 1 · The Holly and the Ivy

Lyrics

About the Carol

This carol, which may date back to the seventeenth century, uses two evergreen plants to beautifully describe the symbolism behind the life of Jesus Christ. Holly and ivy plants were used in winter celebrations long before Christmas became a holiday. Their vibrant, green boughs—even amidst a cold, dark winter—were a sign of life. Some ancient peoples even believed the plants held magical qualities that could ward off evil. The Romans used holly and ivy in pagan celebrations, such as the midwinter festival of Saturnalia, which honored Saturnus, the god of agriculture.

Over time, it appears that Christians borrowed from these celebrations, adapting the symbols for their own use. In Victorian England, the use of holly and ivy to decorate for the Christmas season became so popular that a merchant in 1851 is said to have ordered 250,000 bushels of holly to decorate that year.

In the carol, holly and ivy are used to describe the Christian symbolism attributed to the evergreen plants. The white holly flower represents Mary’s and Jesus’s purity. The red holly berry symbolizes Christ’s redeeming blood. The sharp prickle of the holly leaf is a reminder that the King of kings was forced to wear a crown of thorns on his head. And, of course, the evergreen nature of the plants points to the renewal of life through Christ.

Though the song is titled “The Holly and the Ivy,” ivy is mentioned only in the song’s first stanza. This may be a holdover from an earlier song called “The Contest of the Holly and the Ivy,” which described a battle of the sexes, where holly represented the masculine sex and ivy represented the feminine.

Both the lyrics and the tune of the carol itself are anonymous. It was first officially published in 1911 by the great English folklorist Cecil Sharp. Sharp traveled all over Britain, collecting folk songs in villages small and large, recording melodies and poems that had been passed down for generations.

In 1909, Sharp reportedly talked to a Mary Clayton of Chipping Campden (located in Gloucestershire, England), who sang him a tune about holly and ivy. She said she’d learned the song as a child.

The tune she shared—which may be more than 1,000 years old—is the one we recognize today as “The Holly and the Ivy.” The words, however, only somewhat resembled what we are familiar with today. Her lyrics didn’t make sense to Sharp, and so he asked about the song around town. He found a number of others who also knew the tune—with varying lyrics—and was able to record the melody and words in his notebook. This helped him arrange a complete version that includes the refrain as we know it now.