Corralling the Caroling

Is there anything more uncomfortable than standing awkwardly in your own doorway as friends, neighbors or even people you don’t know serenade you with well-wishes and holiday cheer by means of a Christmas carol?

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I submit that there isn’t.

I don’t want anyone to think that this statement, in any way, insinuates that I hate Christmas —because I don’t. I am just simply stating a simple truth that many are afraid to say themselves for fear that, in doing so; they will be demeaning another’s efforts to spread a little holiday cheer and kindness. After all, it is because of this kindness and longing for universal peace and love that this season is such a popular time of year —world wide. The presents help too, I’ll admit.

However, in an effort to continue with unabashed honesty, I do feel that, in following the guidelines of spreading said peace and love, the act of caroling might be, in and of itself, a direct contradiction to achieving that goal, not to mention one of the least thoughtful deeds a do-gooder can commit. Think about it, visiting friends and neighbors, ringing their doorbells, interrupting their evenings and proceeding to sing popular Christmas hymns in courageous but excruciating, amateur fashion for several minutes, while simultaneously letting cold air in the house because the kind-hearted listeners are too nice to shut the door before the song is finished —or too slow to get it closed between song selections— may be one of the rudest forms of teasing one human being could bestow upon another.

Caroling is a generational thing, pure and simple. In the days before hundreds of channels, movies on demand, iPods, singing greeting cards, and “elf yourself” holiday e-cards, people loved going caroling. It was all they did. It brought color to their monochromatic world. In the olden days, people would wait anxiously by their doors and windows, Kruger style, hoping to secure an invitation from a passing caroling troop. Sometimes, when an invitation wasn’t proffered, they would just try to blend in with the group and see how long they could last before they were sent home —usually at the behest of the old, frumpy school teacher who sang a painful soprano part louder than the rest of the choir. I think I even read somewhere that caroling was a tradition that was practiced all year long. They would just interchange their Christmas song selections with hymns or a mind-numbing renditionall forty verses of “She’ll be coming around the mountain.” Caroling was, for our generation X through Z understanding, the equivalent of an evening watching a High School Musical movie or “Glee.” The only difference being that, instead of singing along with Zac Ephron confidently behind closed doors to an unresponsive flat screen HD TV, you would be singing sheepishly on a front porch to an audience that, believe it or not, probably feels more awkward than you.

This brings me back to my first and original point: caroling, even with good intentions, seems like a brutal way to express neighborly love and holiday-season warmth. But then again, I was born on the flip side of the last century.