- In the bleak midwinter
- Frosty wind made moan,
- Earth stood hard as iron,
- Water like a stone;
- Snow had fallen,
- Snow on snow,
- Snow on snow,
- In the bleak midwinter,
- Long ago.
- Our God, heaven cannot hold him,
- Nor earth sustain;
- Heaven and earth shall flee away
- When he comes to reign;
- In the bleak midwinter
- A stable place sufficed
- The Lord God incarnate,
- Jesus Christ.
This is my favorite Christmas carol, “In the Bleak Midwinter.”. It was written as a poem by Christina Rosetti and set to music much, much later. Rosetti is a wonderful poet, especially for children as much of her writing is vivid and concrete rather than abstract so the little people can grasp it. Sid even practiced it on the guitar in preparation for our 2nd annual Christmas caroling. But alas, time got away from us and the weather turned bitter cold, so we did not get to go caroling this year.
But we did sing carols Christmas morn with my in-laws, Grandmother Louise and my mom. Sid strummed “In the Bleak Midwinter” on his guitar. Grandma Louise belted out several carols on my piano. Sidney and Lincoln entertained us with their Suzuki songs on the piano and the violin. It was a delightful day.
I will post pictures later. For now, I will leave you with Corinne May singing my favorite carol “In the Bleak Midwinter.” Go listen to it. It will make your heart sing.
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Came back to edit because my dear husband complained. Apparently, he thinks I have not properly prepared my readership (which consists of my mother-in-law and my sister) to transition from the lovely carol of this post to the subject matter of my next post. I tried to explain that my loyal readers check my blog daily (I’m sure of this) and thus had already read the next post, which actually preceded this post by 4 whole days.
But he insists that I need a segue, from this post to the following (though preceding) post.
So this is it: Consider yourself properly segued. Or something like that.
Prairie Sings 
Here is your sister-in-law, also part of your loyal readership. Tell my brother that the 2 posts are totally disconnected in my mind, as I read the excrement one many days ago. Or something like that. No need for a segue.
Your other sister-in-law here, who totally agrees.
Also, I find the In the Bleak Midwinter is totally ruined for me by the fact that the tune was also used for the West Caldwell alma mater. So you might be singing about the bleak midwinter, but my mind wants to sing about being victorious warriors bold.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
NO!
NO!
NO!
I will use my faulty memory to advantage and FORGET you ever told me that. In fact, I have convinced myself that you are totally wrong about that. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
I never really did sing the alma mater stuff much. I think I put my finger in the air a few times, but felt really stupid about it.
Wait, I think, at graduation, I did it and felt kind of moved in a nostaglic kind of way, but mostly excited that I wouldn’t be trapped in high school anymore while my love was 4 hours away in Chapel Hill.
That was a really mean thing to do, Sandra. 🙂 I actually had forgotten that myself.
*Snicker.
Hail to thee, oh West High,
school we love so dear.
Praise our alma mater
Through each coming year.
We shall be victorious.
We are warriors bold.
Hail to thee, West Caldwell,
Blue and white and gold.
Don’t forget your finger pointing on that last line. In my defense, we had several pep rallies a year where we had to sing this.
Oh ick, urg, ack!
Reads the first line. Decides she will not be tortured in this way.