🎵 🎄 HOLIDAY MUSIC MONTH 2023 is Here! Good Morrow, Masters All!

It’s just past three o’clock, and it’s cold and frosty outside this morning in my river valley. Good morrow, school masters and mistresses all! (That’s a fine line of dactylic tetrameter if I do say so myself.) 😊

December is Homeschool Holiday Music Month in the River Houses, and throughout the month we’ll be sharing a wide assortment of seasonal favorites in a great variety of styles and genres — classical and modern, sacred and secular, serious and silly — along with a collection of easy educational notes that will let you teach little homeschool lessons all along the way.

Our sprightly inaugural carol for the month, like many traditional pieces of Christmas music, has quite a few different roots. Both the tune and the non-holiday refrain — Past three o’clock … Good morrow, masters all! — have been traced to at least the 1600s, while the specific Christmas verses that tell the Nativity story were composed in the early twentieth century by George Ratcliffe Woodward (1848–1934). (Homeschool lesson: although some pieces of music, like some works of literature, are the product of a single author writing at a single time, others are composite works that have grown and changed in different ways over many generations, as we see with true folk songs, ancient epics, and many traditional Christmas carols. In particular, words and music that we think of as going together today may well have been written by different people at different times — even centuries apart.)

The refrain of “Past Three O’Clock” is based on the night-time call of the waits — the traditional night watchmen and town musicians that existed in many English towns as far back as the Middle Ages. The waits would walk the town at night calling out or piping out the hour, and their role grew to include minstrelsy and performances at local musical events. The International Guild of Town Pipers keeps alive the tradition of the waits today.

Past Three O’Clock

Past three o’clock,
And a cold frosty morning;
Past three o’clock,
Good morrow, masters all!

Born is a baby,
Gentle as may be,
Son of the eternal
Father supernal. (Refrain.)

Seraph quire singeth,
Angel bell ringeth;
Hark how they rime it,
Time it and chime it. (Refrain.)

Mid-earth rejoices
Hearing such voices
Ne’ertofore so well
Carolling “Nowell!” (Refrain.)

Hinds o’er the pearly
Dewy lawn early
Seek the high stranger
Laid in the manger. (Refrain.)

Cheese from the dairy
Bring they for Mary,
And, not for money,
Butter and honey. (Refrain.)

Light out of star-land
Leadeth from far land
Princes, to meet him,
Worship and greet him. (Refrain.)

Myrrh from full coffer,
Incense they offer;
Nor is the golden
Nugget withholden. (Refrain.)

Thus they: “I pray you,
Up, sirs, nor stay you
Till ye confess him
Likewise and bless him.” (Refrain.)

If you have a musical household, why not download the sheet music for “Past Three O’Clock” and put together your own homeschool performance. With practice and luck, you might sound as good as the talented Girl Choir of South Florida in this performance from 2011.

What marvelous musical discoveries will you and your students be making in your homeschool during this magnificent Holiday Music Month? 🎄 🎵

❡ Mid-earth rejoices: If a special line or turn of phrase happens to strike you in one of this month’s musical selections, just copy it onto your homeschool bulletin board for a few days and invite your students to speak it (or sing it) aloud — that’s all it takes to begin a new lyrical friendship and learn a few lovely words that will stay with you for life. 🌎

❡ Musical memories: If you’d like to fill your homeschool with some beautiful background sounds during the holidays, why not tune in to the 24-hour Holiday Channel from WQXR, the famous classical music radio station in New York City. “Enjoy the sounds of orchestras, choirs, brass ensembles and more as we celebrate the sacred and secular sounds of the season.” I have it on as background music almost all day at this time of year. Won’t you join me? 📻

❡ Olden times and ancient rhymes: What did the Christmas season sound like a hundred years ago and more? Find out from this wonderful collection of historic recordings of American Christmas music, brought together by the Library of Congress. 🎵

❡ Lift every voice: This is one of our occasional posts on Homeschool Arts & Music. Add your name to our weekly mailing list and get great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. 📫

❡ Homeschool calendars: We have a whole collection of free, printable, educational homeschool calendars and planners available on our main River Houses calendar page. They will help you create a light and easy structure for your homeschool year. Give them a try today! 🗓

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❡ Join us! The aim of the River Houses project is to create a network of friendly local homeschool support groups — local chapters that we call “Houses.” Our first at-large chapter, Headwaters House, is now forming and is open to homeschoolers everywhere. Find out how to become one of our founding members on the Headwaters House membership page. 🏡