God rest ye merry, gentlemen; let nothing you dismay
Remember, Christ our Savior was born on Christmas Day
To save us all from Satan’s pow’r when we were gone astray

O tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy!
O tidings of comfort and joy.

In Bethlehem , in Israel, this blessed Babe was born
And laid within a manger upon that blessed morn
The which His Mother Mary did nothing take in scorn

O tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy!
O tidings of comfort and joy.

From God our heav’nly Father, a blessed angel came
And unto certain shepherds brought tidings of the same
How that in Bethlehem was born the Son of God by name

O tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy!
O tidings of comfort and joy.

Alan Sanderson: guitars, ukulele, organ, lead vocals
Heinz Sander: bass
Johann: piano, backing vocals
E-Sandy: percussion, backing vocals
Dragon: violin
Fitz: clarinet

Notes

Last Christmas I visited a beloved patient of mine in her home, and sang Christmas songs to her with my guitar. She was bed-bound and on a ventilator due to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and she communicated by typing on a screen with her eyes. As I left that day she told her husband to give me a well-worn book from her collection, which was a Christmas songbook published in the early 1980’s by Reader’s Digest. She passed away this year, so I decided to record a song from her book in memory of her. Johann arranged the cover art from the graphics in the book. God rest ye merry, Julia.

What does that even mean? “Rest ye merry” was a term of goodwill in Middle English that dates to the 1300’s. It is similar to how me might say, “Have a good one,” or something like that. Saying “God rest ye merry” was a way of invoking God’s blessings of peace and contentment on someone. Shakespeare used the phrase in “As You Like It,” which was published in 1623. This Christmas hymn was probably written around that time, but we don’t know anything about the composer.

This arrangement is a bit uptempo, which is how it came out when we played this song in the living room through December. Of course it was influenced by the unforgettable arrangement of this song by Mannheim Steamroller, which is probably the best recording of the song ever made.

The guitars are panned hard left and right, with one in standard tuning and the other in Nashville tuning. The guitar in standard tuning belongs to Tom, and I have had it in my house for a few months. I gave it a tune-up with new strings and a truss rod adjustment, and it is a pleasure to play! The ukulele provides arpeggiated movement on top of the driving rhythm of the guitars. Heinz’s bass provides the foundation. E-Sandy’s percussion was performed by hand with one take each for the shaker and tambourine.

The violin and clarinet of the first instrumental verse are played by middle schoolers. They are learning these instruments for their school band and orchestra, and they are doing a good job.

Johann arranged the four-part harmony for the piano in the second verse, and fiddled with the piano roll to adjust the velocity and start time of each note to make it sound more like a human playing and less like a computer. It is the only virtual instrument in the recording.

The organ in the second instrumental verse is a new addition to our household, salvaged by Johann from a storage facility. It is a Conn Theatrette 552, without pipes, built in about 1970. He plugged it in, and it worked fine. It had a mouse nest in it, so Johann and Heinz cleaned it out before we brought it into the house. It has a headphone output, so we were able to plug it into a DI box and route the signal right into the mixer. The organ gives the arrangement a 60’s-70’s folk rock sound, which is kind of cool.

The final verse has a fantastic vocal harmony written and performed by E-Sandy. Johann then added layered choir Oooos and Ahhhhs, and a counterpoint vocal.

I upgraded to the latest version of Linux Mint last month, and this was my first recording on the new system. During the mixing and mastering we found that the Calf plugins didn’t work, so we went searching the forums to find out why. Apparently those plugins are designed poorly on the back end, and a lead developer of Ardour recommended against using them. I often use the Calf Vintage Delay plugin, so I will have to find a workaround for that. But for this recording we found a workaround for the stereo Multi Spread: I split the organ into two tracks and panned one left and the other right. Then I put an EQ on each channel with complimentary frequency boosts and scoops on the right and left channels, so that the frequencies of the original signal are spread over stereo space. It worked pretty well.

This recording marks the 10th year of our family tradition of recording a Christmas song. It has been quite a decade of growth. Johann and I listened to all of the old recordings last night, and they document a lot of evolution: in our music gear, our recording equipment, the software we use, our know-how in arranging, recording, mixing, and mastering songs, and in the voices of the kids in our family. It has been a good decade!

Info and Stats

• Production Dates: December 2025
• Equipment:
  • Interface: Behringer Xenyx 1204USB
  • Instruments: Yamaha FG-335 guitar, Takamine G-330 guitar, Ibanez UICT10-BK ukulele, Ibanez ASB-140 bass, clarinet, violin, Conn Theatrette 552 organ
  • Microphones: Rode NT1
• Software:
  • Linux Mint 22.2
  • Ardour 8.12.0
  • Dragonfly Hall Reverb
  • x42-plugins: parametric equalizer, dynamic compressor, digital peak limiter
• sfizz with Salamander Piano
  • Total tracks: 23
  • Vocal: 12
  • Guitar: 2
  • Ukulele: 1
  • Bass: 1
  • Violin: 1
  • Clarinet: 1
  • Piano: 1
  • Organ: 2
  • Percussion: 2