Christmas Carol

One of my favorite parts about being an Indian Orthodox Christian, is how we celebrate the holidays. When I think back to my childhood, Christmas caroling is definitely one of the highlights.

For many people, when they think of Christmas carols, they just think of a bunch of people going door to door singing the most popular Christmas songs there are.

But no, we do it totally different. We go house to house, but it's only houses of the members of the church (no strangers). We sing songs that are upbeat and about Christmas and most of them are in Malayalam. They are a few boys playing the drums, some older men playing the tambourines, and everyone else clapping and singing. I remember as a child, we would start around 3 pm and end at 1 am. No matter how tired we were, we would want to keep going. My parents would try to get me to stay home on Sundays but I wouldn't have it. There's actually been times where I didn't go to school on Monday because I was to busy out caroling the night before. In each house there would always be a group of people who liked to dance and clap to the songs everyone was singing. If it was a favorite song, everyone would get involved. Some houses served snacks and drinks because we grew very tiresome after a few songs. It's really something people of all ages enjoy at my church. Even the car ride from one house to another was always fun. Each group of friends would cram into one car, tell stories and sing songs. It was full of laughter and I could only remember being so happy during these times.

My church still does carol, but my friends and I can't go as often because we're in college and it's right around finals time. To me, it really doesn't feel like Christmas unless I go caroling with my church. They're like my second family and we all get along so well. Luckily for me, my finals are done just before the last weekend of caroling!