page_title: Christmas music
section_title: Royal restoration
hierarchical_section_title: Christmas music / History / Royal restoration
caption_attribution_description: English: King's College Chapel Cambridge
context_page_description: Christmas music comprises a variety of genres of music on a variety of topics, religious and otherwise, regularly performed or heard around the Christmas season. Christmas carols remain a large part of the popular Christmas song canon, with numerous titles being added in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s in the United States. Subject matter ranges from the nativity of Jesus Christ, to gift-giving and merrymaking, to mythical figures surrounding the holidays such as Santa Claus and his elves. Many songs simply have a winter or seasonal theme, or have been adopted into the canon for other reasons.
  The Great Depression era of the 1930s brought a stream of songs of American origin, most of which did not explicitly reference the Christian nature of the holiday, but rather the more secular traditional Western themes and customs associated with Christmas.
context_section_description: When in May 1660 Charles II restored the Stuarts to the throne, the people of England once again practiced the public singing of Christmas carols as part of the revival of Christmas customs, sanctioned by the king's own celebrations.
  The Victorian Era saw a surge of Christmas carols associated with a renewed admiration of the holiday, including "Silent Night", "O Little Town of Bethlehem", and "O Holy Night". The first Christmas songs associated with Saint Nicholas or other gift-bringers also came during 19th century, including "Up on the Housetop" and "Jolly Old St. Nicholas". Many older Christmas hymns were also translated or had lyrics added to them during this period, particularly in 1871 when John Stainer published a widely influential collection entitled "Christmas Carols New & Old". William Sandys's Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern (1833), contained the first appearance in print of many now-classic English carols, and contributed to the mid-Victorian revival of the holiday. Singing carols in church was instituted on Christmas Eve 1880 (Nine Lessons and Carols) in Truro Cathedral, Cornwall, England, which is now seen in churches all over the world.
  According to one of the only observational research studies of Christmas caroling, Christmas observance and caroling traditions vary considerably between nations in the 21st century, while the actual sources and meanings of even high-profile songs are commonly misattributed, and the motivations for carol singing can in some settings be as much associated with family tradition and national cultural heritage as with religious beliefs. Christmas festivities, including music, are also celebrated in a more secular fashion by such institutions as the Santa Claus Village, in Rovaniemi, Finland.
caption: King's College Chapel, Cambridge (left) in the snow where the Nine Lessons and Carols are broadcast on the BBC and around the world on Christmas Eve
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