Angels We Have Heard - Author's Note

Angels We Have Heard: The Christmas Song Stories

In an age when so many things threaten to eclipse the human spirit, like many, I was searching for a way to transcend the darkness. For me, working on this Christmas book for six years evolved into a divine opportunity to integrate some of the poetry, mythology, spirit and magic of our collective past into a new vision for myself and others.

When I started this incredible journey in 1996, it was a couple of years before the Internet transformed everything, and The Boston Public Library’s card catalogue served as my main research tool. Across the street from the library’s hushed silence was Phillips Brooks’ glorious Trinity Church, and on warm summer days, the ringing of its bells seemed to remind me that I was not alone.

I had no way of knowing that during the summer of 2000, as I researched John Lennon’s “Happy Xmas (War Is Over),” and visited his Strawberry Fields in New York City, the song, as well as all of the stories of peace and love in this book, would take on a much different meaning for me a year later.

Yet during these tumultuous times, I discovered a pure beauty in the simple messages and images associated with this incredible pop-culture holiday history. Whether it’s the warm thought of how an underdog like Rudolph saved Santa, or the touching notion of how a galvanized group got together and recorded “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” to raise world awareness of starving children in Ethiopia, we can all be guided by these gentle Christmas Spirits of the past. They have shown us that each one of us can make a difference, and I’m glad that I can finally share some of this beauty with you.

For hundreds of years Christmas songs have healed and united the world, and they continue to do so. We can’t help but go back to these pristine melodies and poetic lyrics year after year for inspiration, and surprisingly enough, children are still introduced to the wonderful tradition of singing them at a time when many traditions have slipped into obscurity. My individual longing to know more about the stories behind these powerful tunes, which continuously bring our voices and hearts together, led me to some of the most incredibly divine and universal truths of my life.

As I did, you may learn simple lessons from and see yourself in the stories inside this book, like Caroling, Caroling, in which a young wife struggles to overcome the death of her beloved husband by posthumously releasing his songs as a Christmas card to the world. Through her incredible efforts, she was able to give her husband the gift of musical immortality.

You may also see some reflection in Rudolph The Red-nosed Reindeer, which tells the behind-the-scenes tale of Robert L. May, who wrote Rudolph as a way to deal with the depression over his wife’s terminal illness. His creation served a dual purpose, for after he wrote it, he used it as a way to lull his young grief-stricken daughter to sleep every night. She continuously asked her father why her mother wasn’t like everyone else’s. His answer to her became Rudolph The Red-nosed Reindeer. The story of how Gene Autry reluctantly came to record Rudolph’s song will show you how an uncanny synchronicity was at play throughout the whole 1949 phenomenon.

In addition, you may be touched by Judy Garland’s involvement in the making of “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas,” and surprised to learn how the song bridged lost decades of time when many years following her death, it helped reunite her with her youngest daughter.

It may also astound you to be whisked back to the Holy Land, circa 1865, where you are led to learn about some of the holy epiphanies Phillips Brooks experienced there when he wrote the lyrics to his moving masterpiece, “O Little Town Of Bethlehem.”

There’s something very magical about all of the surviving Christmas songs that makes us want to revisit them years after they were written. This book has tried to capture that magic, and its stories and images show why we all return to them year after year for hope and reassurance.

When we return, glorious thoughts and feelings seem to effortlessly appear, leading me to believe that in some way God’s hand has gloriously delivered to us a vein of gold in the angelic guise of the red and green miracle known as Christmas music.

The timelessness of these stories and the constant miracles they perform when they join us in song and spirit as one world, shows that as Phillips Brooks so movingly once wrote in “O Little Town,” faith certainly does “hold wide the door,” and that truly “the dark night wakes, the glory breaks and Christmas comes once more.” I hope something in these stories and images will remind you of that glory.

Love, peace and, of course, Merry Christmas!
James Adam Richliano