What Child is This?

I found myself humming this carol yesterday at work. So, this article seems an appropriate way to continue preparations for the coming celebrations:

Looking for Mary in Christmas Carols: "It’s Christmas, so we’re singing carols. OK, it’s not Christmas, it’s really Advent, and “carol” has a particular set of musicological meanings that don’t have anything to do with Christmas–but we call almost any tune we sing in December a “carol” (even that culinary chestnuts song) and the speaker at the stand where I pump [...]"

(Via FIRST THINGS: On the Square.)