Personent Hodie

Personent hodie
Voces puerulae,
Laudantes iucunde
Qui nobis est natus,
Summo Deo datus,
Et de virgineo
Ventre procreatus.

In mundo nascitur;
Pannis involvitur;
Praesepi ponitur
Stabulo brutorum*
Rector supernorum;
Perdidit spolia
Princeps Infernorum.

Magi tres venerunt;
Munera offerunt;
Parvulum inquirunt,
Stellulam sequendo,
Ipsum adorando,
Aurum, thus et myrrham
Ei offerendo.

Omnes clericuli,
Pariter pueri,
Cantent ut angeli:
'Advenisti mundo:
Laudes tibi fundo
Ideo: Gloria
In excelsis Deo'.

Those people who have known me forever call me Marvo the memory woman. Not because of my near photographic memory for dates, facts, formulae, vocab or whatever but because I always remember the minutiae of life - the stuff that actually happened to us when we were kids. Who said what to whom, who did what, times, dates, places, etc. Plus all that TV and film trivia too. Turns out, I was an early prototype of wikipedia.

Well - I'm not entirely convinced my memory is entirely what it was. There are some things though that will be carved on my heart forever. There are plenty of things - loads and loads of things, too many things perhaps - that I cling on to from my childhood and school days. Some things that might be better let go....but the clearest and best memories I have are of Christmas, and the school carol concerts. They were the highlight of the school year, if music was your thing. And they were certainly the highlight of my year for the 7 years I was at Coloma.I loved singing in those concerts, I loved the predictableness of them, I loved the songs we used to sing. One of the worst things about living in Exeter is that the carols here are absolutely dire. Apparently Devonians have sworn off all good carols and only consent to sing the dirgey ones or bizarrely random ones. So, it's many years since I sung the proper Christmas songs. But I'll never forget them.

Personent Hodie
See Amid the Winter's Snow
In the Bleak Midwinter
All under the leaves
This Little Babe
We three kings
Hark the Herold
Come come come to the manager
Buloolaloo

*The gusto with which we used to sing this line was always quite satisfying. Or maybe that was just me!