Christmas songs you sang at school (Nativity/Carol concert bangers)

[TheBluestEye2]

I was at primary school in the 80s/early 90s and the Apuskidusky thread has been bringing back some memories of songs we sang.

In particular I have been recalling Christmas songs we sang in our school nativity plays and Carol concerts. I recall As Joseph was a Walking, Wind Through The Olive Trees Softly Did Blow, and the Inkeeper song (Rat-A-Tat-Tat, Rat-A-Tat-Tat, No! No! No! There isn't any room).

Which Nativity Play/Carol concert bangers do you recall?

In my early days of teaching we sang so many of the songs from these books that people are remembering on this thread, always with someone really banging them out on the piano.
I've got them at school but I don't play well enough to teach them now.

Come and join the celebration. Absolute banger.
Come and... join the celebration,
It's a... Very special day.
Come and... Share our jubilation,
There's a new king born today!

Lovely thread!

I was in my primary school choir from an early age and can remember most of the carols mentioned. ‘Little Jesus, Sweetly Sleep’ is another one we did almost every year, along with John Rutter’s Carol of the Children’. I’m also very fond of ‘It Was On a Starry Night’.

There are also two that I think must have been written by one of my teachers as I’ve never been able to find any trace of them online! One began ‘Come little brother, come little sister’ and the other began ‘We three kings who journey keeping watch on a star’. I can vividly remember the tunes and most of the words but they don’t seem to exist outside my head!

"The Virgin Mary had a baby boy"
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ihQuiyV-lXU&list=RDdpsXNlarAk8&index=2

When Santa got stuck up the chimney. Not thought of that song for 25+ years until prompted by this post and can remember every word!

Not remotely nativity related but our Christmas productions always had some sort of modern spin on them

The Little Drummer Boy - parum Pa Pa pum….

And ‘Do You Hear What I Hear?’ 🩷https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qUqmkOD848M

There was also ‘While Shepherds washed their socks watched their flocks”

I love the Calypso carol! But I never even heard it until dds sang it at school.

Away In A Manger, sung by little kids at a Nativity, is guaranteed to have me groping for the tissues, and Gds told me tonight that they’ll be singing it at theirs. He’s going to be the innkeeper, while Gdd will be Mary!

That's an awkward one.

There's a whole generation who can't bear to listen to that. Because it was playing in the background of the tapes the Moors murderers made of Lesley-Anne Downey pleading for her life and then her murder. Those tapes of course have never been released, but the carol in the background was widely reported on after they were played in court

Oh yes, and the French words to Silent Night (Sainte nuit, douce nuit, dans le ciel tout reluit…) and the Latin Quem Pastores Laudavere (Shepherds left their flocks a-straying).

Oh goodness - how awful. I had never heard this before ☹️

Sorry, that was to @RancidOldHag

'92 baby here.

Little Donkey etc. But my personal favourite, was the not so assembly appropriate version of We Three Kings:

We three Kings of orient are,
One in a taxi, one in a car,
One in a scooter, pippin' his hooter,
Smoking a big cigar.

Ooh, star of wonder, star of light,
Fill your knickers with dynamite,
Light the fuse and off we go,
All the way to Mexico.

🤴🤴🤴

Will definitely be teaching my 4 year old.

I have to turn the radio off if Little Drummer Boy comes on. Awful

See Amid the Winter Snow is one that I remember fondly.

Im sure we did this too! Where the title lyrics something like “He’s only a baby, he’ll grow to a man, he’ll ask you to carry on the work that he began…”?

Why are we waiting, why are we waiting -sung to the tune of O Come All Ye Faithful. To which I also know the Latin words (Adeste Fideles).

We also used the Oxford Carols for Choirs Books, orange, green, pink, and blue. Anyone remember those? I loved singing in the choir at school and learning so many different arrangements.

@gnatgnu yes I always found that Carol creepy especially the Ray Cunliffe singers version which I believed was the one that Huntley and Brady played. If it didn't have that notorious history I would have found it a rather haunting beautiful carol, but it freaks me out a little hearing it now since learning the backstory.

Past Three O'Clock was on a schola.programme in 1983. This year I taught it to my choir.

The rocky road carol. I hated that.

That's it. Something like:

Don't wait for an angel or wish upon a star
Face up to life realities, dreaming never gets you far
Look towards the future to golden years ahead
But never forget that happiness came from a cattle shed

He's only a baby, he'll grow to a man
He'll ask you to finish the work that he began.

Show him you are worthy of all his holiness
Always treat others as he would with patient kindliness
Follow in his footsteps your heart will show the way
But never forget that happiness came on a Christmas day.

He's only a baby, he'll grow to a man
He'll ask you to finish the work that he began.

Little donkey, little donkey
On the M25
Got run over, by a rover,
Is he dead or alive.

Ring out those bells tonight,
The donkey's dead,
The donkey's dead...

My school last year LOVED "go tell it on the mountain!"

Our town’s carol festival did The Gift last year and sang the first line as “Over two thousand years ago”

Away in a Manger was the first one that sprang to mind for me. I don't recall doing Little Donkey.

In L1 we did Silent Night in German (Stille Nacht, heilige nacht).

Then over the years ( I was in the choir all the way through):

Once in Royal David's City (solo verse 1)
Hark the Herald Angels Sing
O Come All Ye Faithful (descant on the sing choirs of angels bit) (we also did it in Latin - Adeste Fideles)
The First Noel
Ballulalow
We Three Kings

etc!

We did pretty much all the 'classic' carols and I still love them 😁