The slow annihilation of public life in America can be tracked by the decline of Christmas caroling. There was, in some of our lifetimes, a hearty tradition of groups of people, including barber shop quartets, and church and school choirs going into neighborhoods, knocking on doors, singing a Christmas song they prepared, and moving onto the next house to do it again, to bring joy and/or proselytism to people during the coldest and darkest time of year.

Why did people stop doing this, exactly? The answer lies in your own mind, programmed by a society that has systematically encouraged atomization in every aspect of life, paranoia about the safety of a stranger, whatever that might be—a world where some random person can be commanded to deliver fifty dollars worth of Taco Bell to be dropped off on your porch as a small comfort, but where several people arriving to briefly sing you a seasonal folk song is strange and terrifying. 

Civil society, bonds between neighbors, anything in life that doesn’t generate profit... all of it is poisoned, dismantled by capital for parts, put on hold until some massive rupture reorders the world around a better set of values. But for one night, in Pioneer Courthouse Square, small groups of people fought back against the violent inertia of the social world of contemporary America. 

It was the 11th Annual Great Figgy Pudding Caroling Competition. Here’s how it worked: There were 16 teams of carolers, including barbershop quartets, high school choirs, larger adult singing groups, and one group of women who sang Christmas traditionals reworked to function as protest songs. 

Seeing that treading from door to door, plying your holiday melodies to families bundled up on their porches isn’t really considered normal anymore, an alternative was formed: the groups started in Pioneer Square, and spread out around the area to 16 discreet outdoor locations, while revelers in attendance floated from one performance to another, dropping wooden coins in their little buckets to vote for their favorites. The group who got the most coins would be granted the title of "People’s Choice." While this was happening, The Dickens Carolers, a small professional caroling group decked out in Victorian winter attire, went from performance to performance, lending a more refined ear to the judgement of the various groups. They selected a top three who were ushered to a stage constructed in the middle of Pioneer Square. Everyone in the ample crowd cheered for their favorite, and the group that generated the loudest applause was granted a check for one thousand dollars. 

Over the course of the evening, I spoke with many of the competitors, adults and teens, semi-professional barbershop practitioners, and enthusiastic choir types alike, and I asked them about caroling (or whatever we might call caroling in our busted age), the act of singing holiday favorites in the presence of a small audience, and what they got out of this form of ensemble singing in particular. The response, across ages and genders, and even social inclination was pretty universal: The music is what it is, but the response you get from the audience is joyful and appreciative in a way that other kinds of public ensemble performance just doesn’t emulate.

The performer singing, unmic’d and in close proximity, sees the faces of their audience, they see the uncorking of the affect of Christmases past, the pure universal nostalgia of the season. They see it especially in nursing homes, where even the least seasoned of these singers have spent time entertaining patients in their dotage. Music, as you know, is a powerful key to the door of memory, the card you swipe to access the feelings of youth that drain out of us as we age into something less human, less ourself, over the course of the years. And Christmas music is the last living communal American folk music tradition that is allowed to exist under capital, the only form of music-making that most people are familiar with after the widespread musical deskilling that followed the establishment of the recorded music industry in the beginning of the previous century.

This is all to say: Bring it back, folks. Do not live in the shame that our terrible society makes us skulk around in. Bind yourself to another person’s mind, their nostalgia, the truth, by unleashing the dog in your heart and indulging in some public Christmastime singing with your friends. Because the best way to spread Christmas cheer, as you know, is singing loud for all to hear.

Avance, a group assembled from the Southridge High School choir, won the "People’s Choice" award, coming in second in the wider competition. They were buoyed by a fabulous arrangement of "Wonderful Christmastime," a Paul McCartney holiday classic. I asked the teens what they learned in the process of preparing and performing it.

“I learned that it can sound good,” Ryder Barnum, a singer for the group, told me.

“I learned a part that I never knew, the 'ding dongs.' I never knew that those were a thing,” said Lily Snyder, another singer with the group.

“I love that song, but I feel like some people really dislike it,” said Anna Rickley, a choir teacher at Southridge and the director of Avance. “But tonight, somebody put a token in our bucket and said ‘This is the only time I’ve ever enjoyed this song.”

The Honeybees, an a cappella group that performs year-round, nabbed the third-place award. They also did a Halloween set this year, and they insist that it was really great. “There should be a Halloween singing competition,” said Victoria, a singer in the group.

Timeless, a barbershop outfit from Vancouver who cosplayed Santa and his security elves, won the evening’s top prize. “The harmonies you can produce with four guys who know how to sing, it’s amazing,” said Mike McCormick, a singer in the group. 

“The buzz is addicting and I don’t wanna stop” said  Chace Kellen. 

“It just rings and it’s like…” Ben McGowan, the group’s bass, seen here in a Santa suit, “Ungh, there it is.”