I love Christmas bells — they are the sound of Christmas to me. One of my earliest Christmas memories was hearing the song “Silver Bells”. I felt so grown up when I’d memorized the words from a song book we had a home, and could sing along when the song came on the radio. There are so many songs about Christmas Bells, it was hard to choose which songs to choose to write about. Here are my top three.
Christmas Bells Are Ringing — from the Children’s Songbook. Every recording of this I found was not very musical, so I apologize for that, but I still love this song. My mom was the Primary song leader for most of my time in Primary, she always made song time so fun. One year, she had my dad make these bells/chimes out of plumbers pipe for all of the kids — which were my siblings, and our cousins that lived across the street. And one year the First Ward Primary learned to play the pipe bells. We used them when we sang this song as a round. I remember learning and singing this song as being a very joyful time.
All Bells in Paradise by John Rutter. If there is one person that I associate with good choral music it’s John Rutter. Singing his Christmas songs especially hold very dear and sweet memories and experiences for me. This is one of his newer songs The words really bring in the Spirit and message of Christ’s birth. I’ve just included verse one, but look the song up for the rest of the words, it’s worth a few clicks on google.
Verse 1: Deep in the cold of winter,
Darkness and silence were everywhere;
Softly and clearly, there came through the stillness
a wonderful sound to hear:
All bells in paradise I heard them ring,
Sounding in majesty the news that they bring;
All bells in paradise I heard them ring,
Welcoming our Saviour, born on earth a heavenly King.
All bells in paradise I heard them ring:
‘Glory to God on high’ the angel voices sing.