Carols should keep Christ in Christmas

I returned home after celebrating Christmas mass, anxious to read my paper and enjoy a hot cup of coffee. Hark! Test your Christmas Carol Knowledge was the headline that caught my eye and my sense of Christmas appreciation until I read through the quiz you developed, supposedly about Christmas carols.

I was flabbergasted as I scanned through the twenty questions and discovered, much to my chagrin, that all but one had absolutely nothing to do with a Christmas carol. Beginning with your No. 1., I beg the question what do two reindeer have to with Christmas? A real Christmas classic is recognized in your No. 3 with Grandma getting run over by a reindeer. That surely brought to mind the real sense of Christmas and the carols written to recognize the spirit of Christmas. And so on your list goes except for your No. 6 which asks, "Jesus is born the king of what?" in the only Christmas carol you reference, "O Come All Ye Faithful". I'm terribly sorry that you have found it necessary to focus on songs dealing with jingle bells and Mommy kissing Santa instead of the true spirit of Christmas centered on the birth of Jesus Christ. Only once do you mention the name of Jesus.

These are not Christmas carols. Christmas carols celebrate and refer to the birth of Jesus Christ. A few that you evidently don't know about are, "Silent Night", "The First Noel", "O Little Town of Bethlehem", "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" and "Away in a Manger". There are many more which I suggest you become acquainted with. They are really beautiful.

Put Christ back into Christmas.

Larry Kochan

Des Plaines