Glen Rock Carolers continue tradition

The Glen Rock Carolers continued a Christmas Day tradition that began in 1848, when mill owners began singing Christmas carols to the town. Sunday morning, the singers sang to a bigger crowd, but they still wore top hats, capes and carried canes, reflecting some of the town's Yorkshire, England, history.

The group opens at 11 p.m. Christmas Eve with an inside concert, but at midnight-- not five or 10 minutes past midnight, but AT midnight-- they adjourn to the town square, where hundreds of fans join them. Some of the crowds sings, some hum, some just tag along and listen to the music, some younger folks just tag along and do what younger folks have always done-- be loud and hang out with their friends.

Some of the carolers have been singing for 70 years, and while that's a feat in itself, wandering up and down the town's hills -- there's a reason it's called GLEN Rock-- would easily sap the wind from a teenager's lungs.  But the carolers, about 50 of them, walk, sing, make jokes, eat, laugh and generally have a good time until the sun is starting to come up over the eastern hills.

The crowd is huge and elbow-to-elbow at midnight but thins out after the first two hours to almost nothing, and it's sometimes just the carolers singing to empty streets-- and some adoring neighbors who actually set their alarm and get out of bed to have these gentlemen (no ladies) serenade them with old English Christmas carols. Then, at about 5 a.m., after most of the hills have been walked, a smaller crowd forms to meet the carolers at the bottom of the hill and stays with them until the doxology at the community Christmas tree.

Staying with the carolers the entire night isn't something you might intend to do when the night begins. But these gentleman laugh and joke with the fans, and it's easy becoming part of the fun.