I grew up in a town that was small enough to still have Christmas carolling. I used to love going from house to house singing tunes. We gathered before a house and sang until the owners opened the door. Sometimes they ignored us, but sometimes they would join in. If I had been doing this a few centuries back, perhaps the owners would have offered treats, money or gifts. Or, perhaps we wouldn’t have been singing to homeowners at all; we would have been singing to the trees.

Christmas carolling, in the old sense of going from door to door and singing, has roots in Wassailing. As in: “Here we go a-wassailing among the leaves so green…” Wassail is a drink and a folk tradition celebrated during the twelve nights of Christmas, or in early January. The word comes from Anglo Saxon “vesheil” meaning “be well” or “be whole”. As a drink, it is typically made from a spiced wine/ale or cider and sometimes an egg. In medieval England, where abundant apple orchards grew, and livelihoods depended on a bountiful harvest, folk would go down to the orchards with a large bowl of hot, spiced wassail.

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