Those of you who are Unitarian Universalists know that our 1993 hymnal made some interesting changes to the words of some favorite Christmas carols, such as “Joy to the world, the Word is come/Let earth prepare a room.” Yes, it’s appropriately de-genderized, but it’s not fun to sing.

Here at First Unitarian in New Bedford, rather than use some of those new words, we just print more traditional Unitarian and Universalist words in our order of service. Thinking that others might be doing the same thing, I thought I’d upload the text files of the words we use so that others who wanted to could also insert them into orders of service (no reason someone else has to type these up again).

You’ll find the text file here.

Update: PDF file: Thanks to Ed S., this file is now available as a PDF file — instead of formatting it yourself, you can just print it out! Link. Also, I’ve placed an HTML version on my web site that allows you to jump to individual songs: Link.

Contents:

Angels We Have Heard On High
vv. 1, 2, & 5 from Hymns of the Spirit, 1937
vv. 3 & 4 from Hymns for the Celebration of Life, 1964

The First Nowell
as it appears in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937

God Rest You Unitarians
from Hymns for the Cerebration of Strife, by Rev. Christopher G. Raible, 1972

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
as it appears in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937

It Came Upon The Midnight Clear
as it appears in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937

Joy To The World
as it appears in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937

O Come, All Ye Faithful
as it appears in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937
English and Latin words

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel (Veni Emmanuel)
as it appears in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937

O Little Town of Bethlehem
as it appears in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937

O Tannenbaum
German and English words (I use this when talking about Charles Follen, the Unitarian minister who was born in Germany and brought the Christmas tree tradition to America)

On This Day
as it appears in Hymns for the Celebration of Life, 1964

Silent Night
adapted from Hymns of the Spirit, 1937

…and a few others.