Going around and caroling to spread joy has been happening for about 2,000 years, and through this time it has evolved and changed. The earliest recorded Christmas carol, the Angel’s Hymn, dates back to 129 C.E.
While Brighton High School students may not have sang Angel’s Hymn, they did play other Christmas carols such as “Silent Night” and “Jingle Bells” during the last week of school before winter break. Four different groups, including the band, the orchestra, the AP Calculus classes and Leadership, brought holiday cheer to the halls by caroling. These groups serenaded individual classes throughout the week, providing often welcome interruptions during the lead-up to holiday break. The orchestra even brought their musical talents to Independence Village, a local senior living home, where they played Christmas carols.
“Visiting the senior center and playing Christmas songs brought so much joy to the seniors during the holiday season, and I loved seeing how happy it made them,” freshman Delaney Harvill said.
The AP Calculus classes took a bit of a different approach on the carols. They still performed classics, such as “Jingle Bells”; however, they changed the lyrics to match what they were learning. Instead of “Jingle bells / jingle bells / jingle all the way,” they brought their own calculus-themed twist, singing “Reimann sums / Reimann sums / counting areas.”
The Leadership class did their caroling with the candy grams they sold earlier in the week. Students bought candy grams to send to their friends, and they could pay a little extra so that a carol would be sung to them along with their candy gram. Many students took this opportunity, so Leadership went around to classes during the last hour on the day before break handing out candy grams and singing carols to the students.
Regardless of which group was performing, many students—both the performers and recipients—enjoyed the sense of holiday spirit the carols helped foster.
“It was a lot of fun. I’m really glad we got to do it this year. The band doesn’t usually do this… but I’m glad Mr. Swinky gave us the opportunity to do it, and it was a lot of fun,” junior Grace Neidert, a clarinetist, said.
