Christmas Carolers

"Caroling, caroling now we go
Christmas bells are ringing!
Caroling, caroling through the snow
Christmas bells are ringing!"

— "Caroling, Caroling" (Alfred Burt and Wihla Hutson)

Ah, Christmas time! When the trees are trimmed, presents are wrapped, and people form troupes and go around singing Christmas Songs. It's just one of the ways to establish that it's that time of the year again.

Carolers are often used in works to establish the season and help create the environment. But they differ from other such things, Christmas trees, lights, wreaths and holly and mistletoe, in that carolers are actual characters and thus are able to interact with each other and/or with others, and at times can even affect the plot of the story.

If participating, the characters may be the ones arranging it or at least willingly joining in, or they may be pressed into it and dragged along, in which case they will either do everything they can to ruin the experience for everyone else, or will gradually come to enjoy themselves. If listening they may pause to appreciate the singing, perhaps dropping some cash if the carolers have a donation box or they may simply ignore them or even yell at or chase them off, which is common for The Grinch or the Scrooge.

The carolers themselves can be anything from a family or group of friends who get together and go sing to people, to a full choir singing on the street corners or in the city parks in seasonal costume, often styled after nineteenth century England or early twentieth century America. While they are often shown in small choirs, this is not necessary; it may only be a single person going around singing to friends and neighbors (singing talent optional).

In a fantasy setting, carols for a Christmas Equivalent could also count.

A staple of the Christmas Episode. Not to be confused with fans of A Christmas Carol. Satirical and mock carols will often be an Anti-Christmas Song.

---

Examples:

Advertising

• In an ad for Verizon wireless, a young man hears singing outside his house, and when he opens his door, he finds a small group of people caroling to him, in the middle of summer:
  We wish you a red hot deal today
  We wish you a red hot deal today
  We wish you a red hot deal todaaaay...
  And an awesome new phone (awe-some new phooooooone)!
• This '80s ad for Kroger supermarkets.
• This 2015 commercial for Old Navy, featuring Portlandia's Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein.

Anime and Manga

• Given that most of the story takes place in Christmas Town, it's no surprise that a few panels in The Nightmare Before Christmas: Zero's Journey has them.
• In Go! Princess Pretty Cure episode 45, the main cast forms their own music group called The Princess just to sing an original Christmas carol in front of their fellow students. The camera even occasionally switches to see the many wide smiles among the audience. Only one person isn't smiling (Ranko), and that's because she's in a hilariously awkward bit of Stunned Silence over how good The Princess' song truly is.

Art

• The work Carolers by Terry Ananny depicts four children in a winter setting with lyric sheets in their hands.

Comic Strips

• The gag in the Addams Family movie mentioned below is taken from one of Charles Addams' original cartoons in The New Yorker.
• This activity has been mentioned (and seen) quite a few times in the Christmas comics for Garfield
  • In a December 1996 strip, Garfield listens to a pair of carolers argue over which of them is singing flat. When a third caroler says they're both flat, it turns into a brawl.
  • Jon often participates in it. However, given that Jon's a terrible singer, the experience usually doesn't turn out to well for him —
    • While out caroling with Liz (who's a much better singer), Jon had his scarf wrapped around his mouth.
    • Similar to the above-example, when Jon got back home from caroling, he had duct-tape wrapped around his mouth.
    • Another year when he got back home from caroling, Jon reveals to his cat that he got a ticket from the police for disturbing the "heavenly" peace.
    • Jon and Liz go out caroling with Garfield and Odie, and are doing some vocal warm-ups, but Jon, of course is terrible...so Liz and the pets wrap his scarf around his mouth to keep him from singing.

Fan Works

• In The Next Doctors the presence of carolers tells the Doctor he's arrived at Christmas Eve.
• Smurfette leads a group of Christmas carolers as Papa Smurf goes flying over the forest in a Smurf-as-reindeer-driven sleigh in the Empath: The Luckiest Smurf story "Empath and the Red-Nosed Reindeer".
• In Their Bond, winter solstice in Hyrule is celebrated similarly to Christmas. This includes carolers being commonplace.
• Simple Gifts: A group gathers outside 221 Baker Street to sing carols. Probably this would have annoyed Holmes anyway, but Watson suffering a high fever at the same time worsens it.

Films — Animated

• In The Nightmare Before Christmas, Jack hides from a few passing carolers by disguising himself as a snowman.

Films — Live-Action

• The Santa Clause has a group of them singing "Carol of the Bells" near the beginning as Scott is rushing home to meet his ex-wife and son.
• Mr. Krueger's Christmas: At one point the eponymous Mr. Krueger invites some carolers down to his apartment. They later invite him to come and join them.
• Christmas with the Kranks has the Krank family being bothered by, among other things, carolers who come by every night.
• Elf: When Buddy first meets Jovie and has trouble reaching her, he tries to lift her spirit by telling her, "The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear." Later in the movie, when she learns Santa's sleigh has lost its power source because nobody has Christmas spirit, she remembers Buddy's words of wisdom, and tries to boost everyone's spirit by leading a round of spontaneous Christmas caroling, singing, "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town".
• The Elf: In the middle of the movie, a group of Christmas carolers comes to the house to serenade the cast. They end up being killed by the elf doll using a string of Christmas lights.
• MouseHunt: While Ernie and Lars wander the streets at night, both of them with nowhere to go, cynical Ernie belittles Lars for not looking at the big picture, though Lars says it's Christmas, and instead of dwelling on what they don't have, they should be thankful for what they do have... all the while carolers are singing, "I'll Be Home for Christmas", until the brothers give them an Aside Glance, prompting them to leave.
• During Christmas time in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone ghostly carolers are seen roaming the Hogwarts halls, singing a rather eerie song.
  • More carolers appear in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. After coming out of The Three Broomsticks in Hogsmeade, Harry, under his invisibility cloak, walks through a group of carolers, knocking some of them down.
• The first The Addams Family movie opens with the family preparing to drop boiling oil on some carolers at their front door.
• Played with in Love Actually. A character uses a recording of carol singing so he can spend a couple of minutes using cue cards to let another know how he feels and gain closure for himself on the situation.
• Christmas carolers appear near the end of Bridget Jones' Diary. Bridget is single and spending Christmas Eve with her father. They are completely out of the mood and she just yells at them to bugger off.
• In Gremlins (1984), Asshole Victim Mrs. Deagle hears caroling at her door, much to her anger. When she walks out to scare the carolers away, she freaks out upon seeing its actually a bunch of gremlins. In a way, it's a good thing she does stop as she was about to throw a pitcher of water at them.

Literature

• Adrian Mole: In Secret Diary, Adrian resorts to carol singing on doorsteps to raise money to buy presents for his family, as all his money had been confiscated by his parents when he ran up a Shockingly Expensive Bill.
• Many versions of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol have Scrooge yelling, or worse, at carolers who make the mistake of bothering him. The original book has him chasing off a little boy caroler by threateningly lifting a ruler without even opening the door.
  • Some stage versions have him yelling at a group singing outside his window.
  • Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol starts with a group of kids caroling, but when they come to Scrooge and Marley's, Scrooge kicks their donation cup right out of their hand. All but one of them run off, with the last staring at him before walking away sadly.
  • The Muppet Christmas Carol has a particularly heart-wrenching one: Bean Bunny comes to the counting house singing "Good King Wenceslas" and meekly asking for a penny, only to have Scrooge rudely slam the door in his face, then throw a wreath at him. Later, as evening falls, he's seen huddled in a pile of trash, pulling newspapers around him, cold and miserable and alone. Other scenes include a caroling group of female characters singing a line of "Scrooge" and Bobby Benson's Baby Band as "the street-corner choir" in "It Feels Like Christmas".
  • A Christmas Carol (1984) goes from carolers straight to Marley's eerie voice.
  • Christmas Carol: The Movie has Scrooge throw a bucket of water onto a group of carolers that includes Tiny Tim. This is especially bad because Tim is only just recovering from pneumonia – the cold water triggers a relapse of his illness that almost kills him.
• The Dark is Rising series novel The Dark is Rising. Will and several other members of his family go Christmas caroling throughout the village where they live. This leads to a major confrontation with the Dark in which Will acquires one of the six Signs.
• Hive Mind (2016): Hive England no longer celebrates Christmas, but after Lady Luck passes on New Year, entertainers come through singing festive New Year songs. The first one is a Hive-specific version of "Here We Come A-Wassailing".
• How the Grinch Stole Christmas!: The one thing the Grinch hates most of all is when all the Whos down in Whoville gather together, and start caroling around the Christmas tree. This is carried over into the animated adaptation as well as the live-action film adaptation, the latter of which includes a song on the subject by Ben Folds called, "Lonely Christmas Eve".
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: As part of the Yule Ball, the Hogwarts suits of armor are enchanted to sing Christmas Carols, but they only seem to know half of the words. Peeves the Poltergeist took to hiding in them and making up his own (very rude) versions to fill the gaps.
• The Hogswatch Wassailers in Hogfather are a You Mean "Xmas" version of the trope. The Lemony Narrator says that if you could lift the scene up, there'd be an interesting assortment of chocolates or biscuits underneath. Since the Discworld runs on parody and deconstruction, the wassailers get interrupted by Foul Ole Ron and his beggar buddies, who are caroling horribly off-key and generally making noise in the hopes that someone will offer them a "Begone" Bribe.
• The Wind in the Willows: Some field mice sing carols for Ratty and Mole when the duo spend Christmas at the latter's underground house.
• In one Jeeves and Wooster story, Bertie comments that not being dragged out to sing carols is one of his criteria for choosing which country house at which to spend his Christmas holidays.
• Fiyero makes reference to Lurlinemas carolers in Wicked.

Live-Action TV

• Our Miss Brooks: In "The Magic Christmas Tree". When the Conklins, Mr. Boynton and Walter Denton pay Miss Brooks a visit on Christmas Eve, they regale her with a rendition of "Deck the Halls". Miss Brooks places her hand over Walter's mouth midway through, to stop his off-key adolescent squeaking.
• An episode of Workaholics opens with the guys going caroling while drunk. While it sets up the Christmas Episode, it quickly becomes apparent its a Fictional Holiday, as they guys are celebrating Half Christmas. (The show being set in California, the weather was no indicator of the season).
• One Christmas Episode of Lois & Clark had the two of them sharing a quiet moment together when a troupe starts singing "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear" outside Lois' window.
• At one point in "The Ho, Ho, Ho Job" on Leverage, Parker suggests they all go caroling.
• During many a Christmas season The Late Show with David Letterman brings on a group of carolers to sing the "Top Ten Least Favorite Christmas Carols" (which are traditional Christmas carols reworded to reflect current political satire topics).
• In one Christmas episode of Just Shoot Me!, Nina gets caught int he elevator with some carolers, so she threatens them with a fake gun to get them to shut up.
• In an episode of Life a group of carolers are startled and horrifed when Charlie hits a suspect dressed as one of Santa's elves with a fruitcake.
• Seen at a Christmas party on Veronica Mars.
• Dinosaurs had a Christmas-esque holiday called Refrigerator Day which included carols, which were basically re-worded versions of the real ones, and were also seen being used in advertisements, which Robbie felt cheapened the holiday.
• A few times in Mystery Science Theater 3000.
  • In Santa Claus Conquers the Martians Joel and the bots sing Crow's original Christmas carol, "Let's Have a Patrick Swayze Christmas". Later, at the end of the episode, they sing an actual Christmas carol with slightly different lyrics: "Angels we have heard are high / softly sipping old champagne..."
  • In Parts: The Clonus Horror, Crow and Tom Servo get the two varieties of wassailing confused. They go house-to-house (or rather, to Mike, since no one else lives on the Satellite of Love) and sing Christmas carols with new lyrics promising severe penalties to anyone who doesn't immediately give them wassail. They themselves have no idea what wassail actually is. Much to their disappointment, Mike finds some canned wassail, and it tastes "skunky".
  • In The Christmas That Almost Wasn't Jonah invites the bots to sing carols with him. Except that Jonah chooses Good King Wenceslas "the one carol no one knows the lyrics too".
• Santa punches an obnoxious caroler at one point in Modern Family.
• How I Met Your Mother: To explain his friends' appearance on someone's doorstep on one occasion, Ted says they are carolers. Cue two of them singing "Silent Night" in perfect harmony as Ted and the remaining friend finish making up from a previous argument.
• On My Name Is Earl, Earl mentions that before the list Joy, Randy, and Donny would pose as these so he could go in and steal all the presents under the tree. It was their way of "Christmas Shopping."
• They sing the Bragging Theme Tune of Blackadder's Christmas Carol. Later after learning it's better to be evil, Ebenezer Blackadder listens politely to the Enormous Orphans serenading him then slams the door in their face.
• Picket Fences: If you're in Rome, Wisconsin and it's Christmas, you'll most likely be serenaded by 'The Wambaugh Multicultural Singers'.
• The Box Of Delights: The cathedral choir show up and sing carols outside Kay's house in the first episode. Apart from helping establish the atmosphere, their leader sets up some plot points by inviting Kay and his friends to a couple of diocesan Christmas events that will be important later.
• Community: "Regional Holiday Music" opens with the Glee Club performing in caroler regalia, to the study group's annoyance.
  Shirley: I'm afraid to go into the study room. So many top hats!
• Mr. Bean grows dissatisfied with nothing but war movies on TV during Christmas Eve night, but when a group of caroling kids come to his flat, he decides to sit and watch them. After tiring he closes the door on them without offering candy.
• Discussed in the Doctor Who Christmas episode "The Husbands of River Song" — the lengthy opening tracking shot closes with a reveal of a sign on the front of the TARDIS: "Carol singers will be criticised". The Twelfth Doctor only deigns to help out someone who knocks on its door when he's assured that there won't be any singing.
  • Also discussed at the end of "The Doctor, the Widow And the Wardrobe" when the Doctor shows up on Amy's doorstep:
    Amy: If that's more carol singers, I have a water pistol! You don't want to be all wet on a night like this.
• The Horrible Histories Christmas Episode had carolers sing various parodies of carols, explaining the differences between the song's presentation and the actual historical facts.

Music

• "Caroling, Caroling", as quoted up top.
• The traditional carol "Here We Come A-Wassailing" (or "Here We Come A-Caroling") is about this.
• "The Twelve Pains of Christmas" by Bob Rivers has singing Christmas carols as pain #12.
• "Kagat ng Aso" (Dog Bite) by Filipino rapper Andrew E. has him and his crew of Christmas carolers being on the receiving end of big, nasty dogs that guard the homes they visit.
• In the song "There Are No lights on Our Christmas Tree" by The Seekers, the singer tells of how his Christmas-hating dad tried to assault carol singers who came to the door.
  Some carol singers came to our door
  I've never seen dad so mad before.
  He grabbed the leader by the coat
  And tried to ram his lantern down his throat.

Puppet Shows

• Sesame Street: In the Elmo's World special, "Happy Holidays", Elmo is repeatedly visited by a quartet of carolers who keep singing, "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" - they have lovely singing voices, but screeching and irritating speaking voices.
• In A Muppet Family Christmas, the Sesame Street characters go out caroling together, and wind up at the house where the cast of the Muppet Show are staying for Christmas.

Theatre

• Legally Blonde: The song "Chip on My Shoulder" uses carolers to mark the Christmas season during the time progression.

Web Animation

• A few Happy Tree Friends Christmas shorts have the characters singing Christmas Carols in simlish.
• The Homestar Runner short "That Time Of Year" has Strong Bad defacing a cutesy children's book about Decemberween. He turns a page depicting holiday carolers into a bunch of rowdy drunks.
  Original: The Martins sing festive songs for the neighbors.
  Strong Bad: The martinis have gone straight to their heads. The neighbors will probably call the cops.
• Jingle and Jangle in Holidaze (2019) briefly sing Christmas Carols during their bonding time.

Web Comics

• Lackadaisy: One mini-comic has carolers showing up where Mordecai and Viktor, two speakeasy hitmen, are working, only to trail off at the sight of their red-splattered hammers and aprons. (They're making cranberry sauce).
• xkcd: A group of carolers sing "Good King Wenceslas" under Black Hat Guy's window. He tells them "King Wencelas massacred my people", dampening their mood.
• One Housepets! Christmas strip has the Arbelt pets singing "You're a Mean One, Mr Grinch" at someone's door. Tiger goes decidedly off-script.

Web Original

• Creepypasta Cookoff: Played for Horror in "A Christmas Peril" by Vague1. A group of Victorian looking carolers are Humanoid Abominations that attack the protagonist.
• Played for Horror in My Neighbor won’t stop singing Christmas carols. As the title suggests, the narrator’s neighbors- the wife and daughter, specifically- sing carols to their husband and will not stop. For entire days on end, they keep singing, and they will not react to anyone. Turns out that a race of goblins resembling pine trees are making them sing.

Web Videos

• A Funny or Die video has Brittany Snow as the world's most annoying Christmas caroler.
• Studio C has a skit where a group of Christmas carolers extort a family over figgy pudding (which they didn't have),including threatening to kill their puppy,taking the keys to their car,threatening to burn the house down and bodily harm them if they called the cops,and handing over their one year old son's trust fund. At the end it turns out (after the carolers left) that they actually did have figgy pudding,with the revelation that the incident was not a one-time occurance. To make things even more creepy,the carolers' threats are made in song,specifically to the tune of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas!"

Western Animation

• Doofenshmirtz in Phineas and Ferb Christmas Vacation! gets so annoyed with some carolers that he actually starts trying to destroy Christmas.
• In The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh Rabbit hears someone singing at his door and thinks they're carolers, but it's actually the vegetable eating bugs, trying to get into his kitchen.
• The Simpsons: In "Grift of the Magi" Bart and Lisa do this in order to battle an evil corporation. Kid First Industries releases a new toy, Funzo, that is programmed to destroy all other toys kids get for Christmas. Lisa and Bart go from door to door singing carols as a way of distracting the families while Homer steals the toys (dressed as Santa Claus, of course).
  • "Dude, Where's My Ranch?" begins with the Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie going from door to door to sing copyrighted Christmas songs such as "Silver Bells" and "Sleigh Ride" (with one stop to sing "Have a Nice Christmas" to the tune of "Hava Nagilah" to Krusty). But when they get to the Blue-Haired Lawyer's house, he tells them they are infringing on copyright, so as a result, Homer decides to write his own Christmas carol. But when Flanders interferes, this sets off the Halfway Plot Switch of Homer instead writing a hate song about Flanders that ultimately becomes too famous and yada, yada, yada.
• In the animated version of A Wish for Wings that Work, a group of carolers appear frequently, one of which looks suspiciously like a certain rock and roll singer.
• A Charlie Brown Christmas ends with the gang outside standing around a Christmas tree and singing carols together.
• It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown plays with this, as Linus sits in the pumpkin patch, awaiting the arrival of The Great Pumpkin, Lucy and the others drop by to see if he's still waiting out there, to which he asks them if they came to sing "pumpkin carols" with him.
• Ed, Edd n Eddy: In "Fa La La La Ed", Ed brings the spirit of Christmas to the cul-de-sac, despite it being the middle of July. At one point, Eddy decides to use Ed's gimmick to his advantage by scamming other kids out of change by Ed, Edd, and himself caroling door-to-door, allowing him to buy them a large bag full of jawbreakers.
  Deck the halls with boughs of holly
  Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la!
  Give us cash, or we'll never stop singing
  Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la!
• One of the "Good Idea, Bad Idea" segments on Animaniacs:
  Good Idea: Singing Christmas carols to your neighbors.
  Bad Idea: Singing Christmas carols to your neighbors... on the Fourth of July. [said carolers are blown up with a huge firecracker]
• Strawberry Shortcake
  • Strawberry runs into some while shopping for presents in "Berry Merry Christmas" of the 2003 series.
  • In Berry in the Big City, a group of carolers briefly show up during “A Holiday Your Way!” to act as part of the chorus for the musical number.
• Jollyday carolers are the first to get their joy stolen by the Glooms in The 7D episode "Jollybells."
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: In "Hearth's Warming Tale", we see ponies gathered in the streets to sing Hearth's Warming Eve songs, both in present Ponyville (with Octavia Melody as conductor) and inside A Hearth's Warming Tale's Victorian setting.
• The Smurfs: A Christmas Carol begins with Papa Smurf and a few Smurfs going through the village singing "Deck The Halls".
• On the first Christmas Episode of The Fairly OddParents!, carolers show up singing "12 Days of Christmas". When Timmy makes it Christmas Every Day, they show up singing the second day. By day 15, they're exhausted and struggling to come up with lyrics.

---