Christmas Music

You may well wonder where Christmas music started, well the word 'wait' comes from waitier, an old French word meaning 'to watch'. The waits were originally the town's watchmen, what we would call security guards. They were paid by the town council to walk through the town and make sure that everything was safely locked up at night. As few families could afford clocks, the watchmen would also call out the time.

In many towns little groups of watchmen formed musical bands. At Christmas time the waits would go through the town playing carols and other Christmas music. Sometimes they would be invited into a wealthy home to be given good Christmas cheer by the way of cakes, ale, mince pies and if they were lucky, money.

Waits bands were once quite common in England but in the 19th Century the police force became much stronger and many towns no longer needed their waits as watchmen. Gradually the bands died out and disappeared. The old custom of group carol singing was not entirely lost and often churches sent carol singers around the houses to collect for charity. This is a tradition that is still alive today.