The Music & the Spoken Word broadcast airs live via TV, radio, and internet stream on Sunday at 9:30 a.m. mountain time. For information on other airtimes, visit “Airing Schedules” at musicandthespokenword.org.

Music

Conductor: Mack Wilberg
Organist: Richard Elliott
Announcer: Lloyd Newell

“Joy to the World!”
Music: Lowell Mason
Lyrics: Isaac Watts
Arrangement: Leroy Robertson

“For unto Us a Child Is Born”¹ from Messiah
Music: George Frideric Handel

“Variations on an Old Carol Tune” Organ solo
Music: Geoffrey Shaw

“Ding Dong! Merrily on High”²
Music: French carol
Lyrics: George Ratcliffe Woodward
Arrangement: Mack Wilberg

“In the Bleak Midwinter”³
Music: Gustav Holst
Lyrics: Christina G. Rossetti

“The Holly and the Ivy”
Music: English carol
Lyrics: Traditional

“Christmas Is Coming”⁴
Music: English carol
Lyrics: Additional lyrics by David Warner
Arrangement: Mack Wilberg

1 On the CDs Messiah - Complete Oratorio and Messiah - Highlights.
2 On the CD Rejoice and Be Merry.
3 On the CD The Most Wonderful Time of the Year.
4 On the CD Let the Season In.

The Spoken Word

The Holly and the Ivy

People watch for the first signs of Christmas with great anticipation. Favorite holiday carols fill the air. Colorful, glistening lights illuminate the night sky. And wreaths of holly and ivy appear on doors and storefronts. To many people, traditional symbols like these signal the advent of the Christmas season. But how did these traditions begin? 

For example, why have holly and ivy become symbols of Christmas? The answer takes us back to the earliest days of Christianity, when wreaths of holly—with their sharp leaves and red berries—brought to mind the crown of thorns worn by Jesus Christ and the drops of blood He shed. The tradition of making and giving decorative wreaths dates to the Roman Empire and may have entered Christianity through St. Augustine, who was Roman by birth and was highly successful at spreading “good tidings of great joy.”¹ Over time, it was believed that a holly wreath on the door would keep one’s home safe from evil—and from tax collectors.²

Holly and ivy commonly appear together as mainstays of Christmas decor. Some say the holly represents the Christ child and the ivy represents His mother, Mary. Others find symbolic meaning in the fact that these plants do not die in winter. In the evergreen leaves of the holly and the ivy, they are reminded of the promise of everlasting life embodied in a newborn babe, wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. No wonder our hearts still thrill with excitement as we see these symbols of Christmas!

The symbolism of the holly and the ivy has been preserved by an English folk song, written about 300 years ago.³ Traditions may come and go, but for all, the holly and the ivy signal that Christmas is coming, and with it, goodwill and enduring hope. 

The holly and the ivy
When they are both full grown
Of all the trees that are in the wood
The holly bears the crown.

1 Luke 2:10.
2 See Ronald M. Clancy, Best-Loved Christmas Carols: The Stories behind Twenty-Five Yuletide    Favorites (2006), 61–62. 
3 Clancy, Best-Loved Christmas Carols, 61.