PDF: Outdoor Caroling Songsheet (1 page, double-sided, with 9 songs)

WEBPAGE: Christmas Song Charts (PDF chord song charts, songbooks, etc.)

• Choose easy songs everybody knows (choose just 4-9 total songs) - Choose the most memorable songs tune-wise. Keep it simple. Don't do all the verses of each carol either but just the most well known parts. The simpler the song selection, the easier things will be outdoors. Remember that you go house to house, so this is not a concert at any one house—often just a song per house, mostly.

• Pick keys that are comfortable for the majority of singers to sing. Let the range be not too high or too low.

• Make sure musicians have practiced the songs in the chosen key, from the same chord chart. Once you are outdoors it is generally too late for musicians (guitar, ukulele, etc.) to get on the same page in terms of what chords to use for a song. Plan ahead.

• Tune accompaniment instruments to the standard tuning by using a tuner. You do not want out of tune guitars, to each other or within the instrument itself, to be a surprise problem outdoors.

• You can provide lyrics to help the singers. Easiest and best scenarios are to give people either a caroling songsheet you provide or have them use their smartphones to read the PDF file of lyrics you send to them. Remember that it will be evening or night time when you go out caroling and so the lighting will be poor. This affects visibility, a factor you gotta keep in mind.

• Have a designated song leader, as well. Someone will have to choose the song and get everyone on the same page. It needs to be a decisive person. This person starts and ends songs, and leads with confidence, at times calling out the next verse right before.

• Designate another leader to lead the group from house to house. Often this person will be the host of the house in which the group first gathered to get ready for caroling. They know their own neighborhood/neighbors well, and which are the better houses to approach, and which to avoid. The leader can be ready to help the tenants of the houses visited know what's going on. Example: "We are going around the neighborhood to sing carol in people's houses, sharing the Christmas spirit and the love of God with you."

• Preview and practice with the carolers what to do when out caroling. Practice how you will approach each house, where you'll stand, if anyone is to knock on the door, and what you will do or say if the neighbors do come out to listen. Children in particular need direction and vision for the caroling your group will do as often this is a new thing for them.

• Prepare a card and/or cookies or chocolate to hand out at each house. This is a great way to add extra festivity to your caroling. You can also create a personalized Christmas card that you can share with each family visited. If yours is a specific group doing the caroling (say a small group from a church) you can put that on the card. People often wonder and sometimes ask about this: "Are you from a nearby church?"