Merry Christmas!
Origins and traditions of Christmas carols

Christmas carols are typical Christmas songs. They are sung during Christmas time and they usually deal with Jesus’ story. They come from an ancient oral tradition.
Christmas Carol are choral songs, as a result they are expression of deep personal emotions and friendliness. In addition they improve the spirit and reinforce religious and popular values, thanks to the content of the songs.
The common origin of Christmas carols is popular melodies born around shepherds in southern lands. In turn, popular melodies were inspired by sacred songs dedicated to Jesus Christ that were diffused during XIII century in the central Italy.
On the other hand, the Christmas theme evolved from cultured music, thanks to the so called “pastorali”, for example the “Christmas Oratorio” of Bach.    
Between the most popular Christmas carols there are “Tu scendi dalle stelle”, “Adeste Fideles”, “Silent Night” but first of all “Jingle Bells”.
“Jingle Bells” was written by James Pierpont and it was published in autumn 1875, with the title of “One Horse Open Sleigh”. Even if the theme of the song is about Christmas, it was originally wanted to be sung on Thanksgiving Day. 
The exact date when James Pierpont wrote the song isn’t known but a little target of a building in Medford (Massachusetts) commemorates the place of Jingle Bells’ birth. Indeed it affirms that Pierpont wrote the song in that place in 1850 and according to Medford Historical Society he would be inspired by the popular sled races of XIX century. 
From 1859 it became public and took the name of “Jingle Bells”.
Throughout the years the song has been sung and recorded by a lot of artists as Louis Armstrong, the Beatles, Frank Sinatra and Luciano Pavarotti.