From mid-December through early January, choirs singing Christmas carols played on the family stereo as I waited for Santa, strung cranberries, assisted in baking ginger bread cookies, hung ornaments at random on our Christmas tree, opened presents, or hung out in my room. In high school and college, I sang arrangements of carols in styles ranging from contemporary classical to barbershop.

Shortly after my Weimaraner guide dog and I moved into a shoe-box sized New York City apartment, I attended a presentation during which I heard a four-part vocal arrangement of “The Christmas Song.”

“Cool,” I thought. “I can do that.”

So beginning in 1984, I began writing three funky four-part vocal arrangements of Christmas carols, and recorded them using a four-track cassette recorder, one track per vocal part. I mixed them onto cassettes, and used them as Christmas cards. During the next twenty years, these arrangements became more sophisticated and experimental — while sounding better.

In the late 1990s, Peter Schickele (better known as P. D. Q. Bach), spoke of his admiration of composers who set familiar Christmas carol lyrics to different melodies.

“Cool,” I thought. “I can do that.”

“What do you mean?” my future wife asked when I talked to her about my history with Christmas carols as we sat together on a threadbare couch in my DC bachelor pad.

“You know the carol `We Three Kings of Orient Are?`” I asked. I sang a couple of phrases of the solemn, melancholy waltz. She hummed along. “I created a different melody that’s more bouncy and joyful. Do you want to hear it?”

She squeezed my hand, so I clicked on the carol and rejoined her on the couch as six voices and a synthesized harp filled the apartment.

“That was awesome!” she said when the tune ended. “Who sang the vocals?”

“Me.”

“Really! How?”

I explained that I would sing the melody on one track and then record the other parts while listening to the melody.

Since my black Lab guide dog and I moved into a rambling house in Columbia, Missouri to join my wife, three stepkids, and an assortment of standard poodles, I have composed new melodies for around a dozen carol lyrics and recorded them using a synthesizer and MIDI technology I bought in 2003. Four of these settings have been performed at the Missouri United Methodist Church in Columbia.

To listen to demos of some of these settings (including “We Three Kings”); several arrangements of standard Christmas carol melodies; and music I composed for our wedding, please visit

Book-Related Information

I hope you can find some time to enjoy this music, and that it moves you to reflect upon these old carols in new ways.

Since Christmas has come, but not totally gone.

For carols have a powerful way of carrying love.

Merry Christmas … and love to you all!