The spirit of Christmas is in the air and many of us are already rocking those holiday tunes. Saturday Hustle shares our favourite traditional carols as we get closer to Christmas day.

Angels we have heard on high

“Angels we have heard on high/Sweetly singing o’er the plains/And the mountains in reply/Echoing their joyous strains…”

The carol commemorates the story of the birth of Jesus Christ found in the Gospel of Luke, in which shepherds outside Bethlehem encounter a multitude of angels singing and praising the newborn child. The song is based on the traditional hymn Gloria (a French traditional carol Les Anges dans nos Campagnes). The English translation was made by Bishop James Chadwick, and the tune arranged by Edward Shippen Barnes.

Deck The Halls

“Deck the halls with boughs of holly/Fa la la la la, la la la la/’Tis the season to be jolly/Fa la la la la, la la la la…”

This is a traditional Yuletide/Christmas and New Year’s carol. The tune is Welsh dating back to the sixteenth century, and belongs to a winter carol, Nos Galan. In the eighteenth century Mozart used the tune to Deck the Halls for a violin and piano duet. The repeated “fa la la” is from medieval ballads and used in Nos Galan, while the remaining lyrics are American in origin dating from the nineteenth century.

Do You Hear What I Hear

“Said the night wind to the little lamb/Do you see what I see/Way up in the sky little lamb/Do you see what I see…”

This Christmas song was written in October 1962 by Noël Regney and Gloria Shayne Baker. The pair were married at the time, and wrote it as a plea for peace during the Cuban Missile Crisis. It has sold tens of millions of copies and has been covered by hundreds of artistes.

The Twelve Days Of Christmas

“On the first day of Christmas, my true love sent to me/ A partridge in a pear tree…”

The Twelve Days of Christmas is an English Christmas carol that enumerates a series of increasingly grand gifts given on each of the twelve days of Christmas. Although first published in England in 1780, textual evidence may indicate the song is French in origin. The twelve days in the song are the twelve days starting Christmas day, or in some traditions, the day after Christmas leading up to January 6.

Silent Night

“Silent night, holy night/All is calm, all is bright/Round yon Virgin Mother and Child/Holy Infant so tender and mild…”

Silent Night, a very popular Christmas carol, was originally titled Stille Nacht and rewritten in Oberndorf bei Salzburg, Austria, by the priest Father Joseph Mohr and the melody was composed by the Austrian headmaster Franz Xaver Gruber. In 1859, John Freeman Young published the English translation that is most frequently sung today.

Joy To The World

Written by English hymn writer Isaac Watts, based on Psalm 98 in the Bible, the song was first published in 1719 in Watts’ collection; The Psalms of David: Imitated in the language of the New Testament, and applied to the Christian state and worship. Watts wrote the words of Joy to the World as a hymn glorifying Christ’s triumphant return at the end of the age, rather than a Christmas song celebrating his first coming as a baby born in a stable. Only the second half of Watts’ lyrics are still used today.