The sound of a Lebanese Christmas

Every December, Lebanon hums with familiar melodies: Laylet Eid, Talj Talj, Laylet el Milad, and the unmistakable Arabic versions of “Silent Night.” In churches across Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, and Iraq, the season arrives not only through liturgy, but through song. Yet the story behind how Christmas carols began and how we adapted them is far older and more fascinating than most people realize.

The first “carols” were pagan winter chants, communal songs celebrating solstice, harvest, and the return of light. It was not until the 4th century that early Christians began replacing these pagan rituals with hymns praising the Nativity.

By the Middle Ages, carols became storytelling tools. Europeans sang about Mary, shepherds, angels, ordinary people narrating a holy night. These traveled with missionaries, traders, and later, migrants who carried melodies across continents.

The Eastern Churches’ Own Tradition

Long before Western carols arrived, the Levant had its own ancient liturgical chants. Maronite, Syriac, Melkite, and Coptic churches developed distinct hymn traditions dating back to the 4th–7th centuries. Some melodies survive today in Lebanese Christmas services, rooted in Syriac maqams.

During the golden age of Arabic Christmas music (1930s-1970s), Lebanon became the beating heart of Arab Christmas culture. Rahbani Brothers compositions in the mid-20th century turned carols into something distinctly ours. “Laylet Eid”, performed by Sabah or Fairouz, was a new genre entirely: Arabic Christmas folklore.

Lebanon infused its own musical DNA into the Christmas carol tradition, replacing the Western reliance on major and minor scales with the rich tonalities of maqams. Traditional instruments like the oud, qanun, and riq were woven into orchestration, while call-and-response structures rooted in Levantine folklore added a communal and rhythmic dimension. Poetic Arabic phrasing transformed the Nativity from a simple prayer into a narrative, full of story and emotion.

Carols Are Memory

In a region that has known wars, migration, and fragmentation, carols anchor us. They bring back childhood, grandparents, church basements, school concerts, late-night rehearsals, and the warmth of a season we’re always trying to hold onto. No matter where they came from, Christmas carols in Lebanon and the Middle East now belong to us sung in our language, built on our scales, and carried by our stories.