What's your favourite Christmas hymn, carol or song?

Sometimes, however much you try, you can never get in to the Christmas mood. Even though everywhere you look you can see some semblance of the arrival of the Christmas season. But somehow you just cannot get yourself to feel that way. This is exactly how I was feeling till I decided to proactively do something about it. I decided to listen to my favourite Christmas carols, hymns and songs. So throughout the day (in office on ear phones), I started listening to various versions of Little Drummer Boy, Away in a Manger, Oh Come, All Ye Faithful, Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Silent Night etc…Now it seems like I won’t be able to get rid of this amazing feeling!

So, what's the difference between a Christmas hymn, carol and a song? Some experts believe that hymns are carols for adults. On this basis, Once in Royal David's City, and Silent Night, for example, are carols. The Oxford Book of Carols defines carols as "songs with a religious impulse that are simple, hilarious, popular and modern." And according to me, a carol that has a copyright and that some people use to make cartloads of money out of, during this season, are Christmas songs. :-)

Almost all of us have a favourite Christmas song, carol or hymn. The ones that we can listen to over and over again. The ones that bring back warm memories of Christmases gone by. My favourite ones are, Little Drummer Boy, All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth, When A Child Is Born, Feliz Navidad and The Christmas Song.

Which are your favourite?

Comments

8 tips for first-time trekkers

"Let's go on a trek to the Himalayas!" , who knew these innocent words of my brother in law in April 2014 would land us in one of the most beautiful places on earth and give us some of the most memorable experiences of our lives a year later! Last month (May 22, 2015), he and I embarked on our first high-altitude trek in the Himalayas to Rupin Pass - 15250ft above sea level, 60+ Kms over 8 days. It was a very well organized trek by India Hikes , one of the oldest trekking companies in India. While a detailed post on our experiences is due, I thought a list (to add to the many I see on my Facebook timeline) of things to remember / do as a first-time trekker might be useful. These are based on our experiences and learning, and is by no means a conclusive guide. The Climb up to the Upper Waterfall 1. Physical Training before is an absolute must: Treks are physically demanding on the body which means you need to keep yourself in reasonably good shape before yo

8 ways to say I love you!

A proposal for marriage is expected to be romantic, well planned, and equally well executed. Around 9 years ago, I proposed to the love of my life and it was epic (self-declared)! I have narrated the story of my day-long, themed proposal multiple times, and with 8 years of us being married, I thought for posterity sake, I should document it somewhere...so here goes! It was the September of 2010, when the planning began, and I was sure that I did not want my proposal to be a simple Hollywood style one - with a formal dinner at a fancy restaurant and then the one knee and ring proposal! That one moment would not be able to capture how I felt, so well, I came up with a theme - ‘8 ways to say I love you!’. As it suggests, I used 8 different ways to profess my love to my girlfriend of 8 years! How this unfolded, we shall find out. Before I started executing my plan, I wanted to get the permission and blessings of both our parents. So without her knowledge, I went over to her place and in

Want to change your life? Go on a trek!

With every passing year, one thinks of all the activities that they could / should have done to improve their overall fitness. I am no different, and with each passing year, as the inches around my waist grow, so does the intent to lose them! I am a National Cadet Corps 'C' certificate holder, so this would not be the first time that I would be pushing my physical limits. Those times though, seem almost like a lifetime back. "Pushing myself physically" was hence one of the reasons I agreed to go on my first-ever high altitude trek with my brother in law. Snow dunes en route to the pass Since both of us were new to trekking, we decided to go on an organized trek, and after some research we decided on Rupin Pass with India Hikes . Once again the moderate to difficult level as indicated by the organizers was an important deciding factor. Let me put on record that while I was very excited, I was also very scared of the prior physical training required - being

Frankthoughts

Search This Blog