From Silent Night to Jingle Bells, Christmas carols are some of the most familiar and beloved songs of the season, and some of the oldest.

Stephanie Sci explores why, even as popular music changes with the times, these classics have endured.

To help us dig into why Christmas carols have stood the test of time. I'm joined by Ariana Wyatt,

a professor of voice at Virginia Tech. Ariana, it's great to have you on the News Hour. You know,

there are very few things that haven't changed over the years. And Christmas carols are one of them.

In fact, as I was reading, I understand that some of them date back 2,000 years to the

birth of Christ. Is that right? It's really remarkable, in fact, that our first Christmas

carol is really proclaimed in the gospel, the angel's hymn, or Gloria and Excellus Deo,

which is a carol that we sing today in many different versions,

and have over the last 2,000 years.

I read that that's because angels were viewed as biblically sort of singing,

that that was the biblical interpretation of what was happening.

Yes, that's correct.

Scholars interpret that saying as singing.

And there's a lot of other references to singing and praising with music, with song in the gospel.

So it makes sense that the angels would have been singing that.

I can call his song. been singing.

My favorite Christmas carol is, Oh, Holy Night.

And there are other carols that start with this expression, oh, right?

Oh, come let us adore him.

Talk about the oh carols. Yeah, it's really a fun thing. So in the 8th century, they made in the liturgy a series of antiphons that were in preparation for the birth of Christ.

So they were during the period of Advent. And there were seven specific ones

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