This has a list of some ways to find songs in The Music Box and our songbooks relating to Christmas, Chanukah, New Year's Eve, Winter Solstice, and other songs of the winter holiday season. 

The best way to find Hanukkah songs is to go to our Song Search page and enter in the song genre box "Hannukah songs".

Similarly, the best way to find songs associated with Christmas is to search under song genre for "carol" (even though some of the songs you'll find in. this are not probably true carols in a technical sense.) Song search for carols

You can also search there for New Year's Eve songs and for Winter Solstice songs.

Rise Up Singing has a Holiday Index at the back of the book with listings for Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Year's. Rise Up Singing has a bunch of old carols in the Ballads & Old Songs chapter. You can find wassails in the Good Times chapter. There are several Chanukah songs in the Faith chapter. There are some African American songs with Christmas themes in the Spirituals chapter. Hanukkah songs are in the Faith chapter. "Ring in the New Year" is in Sacred Rounds. "Auld Lang Syne" is in Times & Changes.

There are only a scattering of Christmas songs in Rise Again because it was our plan at the time we made that songbook to create a collection of many Christmas songs for group singing. It may still happen! But not yet...  In Rise Again, you'll find John Kirtkpatrick's wonderfully radical new carol Chariots (see video above) celebrating Jesus as a true Prince of Peace in the Peace chapter — as performed above by Nowell Sing We Clear at one of their holiday concerts.

Winter Solstice:

Hanukah:

Kwanzaa: 

New Years:

Older traditional carols:

  • Boar's Head Carol - trad. English
  • Brightest & Best - trad. Appalachian
  • Bring a Torch - trad. French
  • Cherry Tree Carol - trad. Appalachian & English
  • A Child This Day - trad. English
  • Coventry Carol - trad. English
  • Deck the Halls - trad. English
  • Friendly Beasts - trad. German
  • God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen (17th c. trad. English)
  • Green Grow the Rushes - trad. English
  • The Holly Bears a Berry - trad. English
  • The Holly & the Ivy - trad. English
  • I Wonder as I Wander - John Jacob Niles
  • Jesus, Jesus, Rest Your Head - trad. Appalachian
  • Joseph Dearest - trad. German
  • Lo How a Rose - trad. English
  • Masters in the Hall - trad. English
  • O Come All Ye Faithful / Adeste Fideles - disputed authorship 17th or 18th c.
  • O Come Emmanuel - medieval Latin carol
  • Seven Joys of Mary - trad. English
  • There Was a Pig Went Out to Dig - trad. English
  • Twelve Days of Christman - trad. English
  • Watts Cradle Song

Wassails & Mummers carols:

Composed carols (mainly 19th century)

  • Hark the Herald Angels Sing
  • In the Bleak Midwinter
  • O Holy Night / Cantique de Noël
  • Silent Night / Stille Nacht

Traditional African American carols: 

Popular composed Christmas songs:

  • Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)
  • Do You Hear What I Hear?
  • Feliz Navidad - Jose Feliciano
  • Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
  • I'll Be Home for Christmas
  • It's Beginning to Look a Lot like Christmas
  • Let It Snow! Let It Snow Let It Snow!
  • Little Drummer Boy
  • Must Be Santa
  • Sleigh Ride
  • White Christmas
  • Winter Wonderland

​Composed folk Christmas songs 

Folk songs set in Christmas time: