183. Caroling

I went caroling with a group of youth/young adults in my village.  We were a group of about 25 people and were accompanied by guitars, tambourine, bells and an accordion. There were about 15 or so songs that we sang throughout the night.  The majority of the songs were in Romanian but there were a few in Russian.

Here are a few songs that I heard in Romanian, usually the melody was the same but the words and overall meaning were different:

-Little Drummer Boy

-We Wish You a Merry Chrismtas

-We Three Kings

-O Christmas Tree

-Jingle Bells

At my Romanian lesson a few days before Christmas I learned/wrote down three Romanian carols, so when I went caroling I knew at least the three most popular.  It was a very useful lesson because we also translated the songs which helped my grammar when I listened to the messages given at church.  I learned/reviewed words like manger, angles, shepherd, virgin Mary, and other words used a lot in the Christmas message.

As we went caroling through the village if there were children at the home one of the people dressed as Santa Clause would come up to the door after we sang and ask the child to say a poem before he gave them a gift.  Then generally the people could give us something to drink and/or eat quickly, and then we would move to the next house.  We visited a lot of different people, but we mostly focused on families and the elderly.  We caroled Christmas Eve and Christmas nights from around 8pm to 2am.

One other interesting thing that I learned is that if you literally translate the Romanian name for Santa Clause it would be “Old Man Christmas”.