To carol or to wassail?

'Tis the season to go a-caroling.

The custom of going door-to-door singing to one's neighbors harkens back at least as far as the Medieval Period, though no doubt a medieval person transported to our era would have trouble recognizing the tradition.

Leaving aside the detail that few people in our modern era actually go singing door-to-door and much prefer to have carolers come to them via TV, radio, CD or iTunes, a medieval person would have called our caroling activity "wassailing." The original "Here we go a-wassailing," song was changed to "a-caroling" because few modern people know what wa...