Who is Ron Clancy

Ronald M. Clancy didn't start out with the intention of building a career around Christmas music. In fact, the 63 year-old graduate of George Washington University originally planned a career in Journalism.

For approximately 20 years, while working as an executive recruiter, collecting Christmas music was a mere hobby. It was when he heard a collection of Christmas carols sung by a choir at Mass that he knew he was hooked - and he began collecting Christmas music until he realized he had a library of songs.

He didn't just listen to and enjoy the Christmas songs - he studied their origins and reveled in their rich history. He wanted to share this with others, so The Millennia Collection was born.

A planned ten-part series, the first three have been released to the public, and are for sale individually or as a collection. His creations have been hailed as a family heirloom thanks to the richly illustrated books and educational background about the origins of each classic Christmas song adored by families over the years.

His enthusiasm for the topic has garnered him exposure on PBS Religion and Ethics Newsweekly, EWTN Catholic Cable Network, and QVC. Christmas collectors have deemed Clancy's creation a must-have addition to their assortment of collected works.

There's always a story behind the creation of a song. Christmas has a history that intrigues millions of people worldwide, and the carols that celebrate this holiday were each created for a specific reason.

Volumes 1-3 of the boxed The Millennia Collection are already available, with Volume #4 on the horizon.

Best-Loved Christmas Carols (Vol.#1)

This exquisite compilation includes a history of the origin of 25 beloved Christmas carols dating as far back as the 13th century. Artistry illustrating the songs includes works by Rembrandt, Boticelli, and more.

This collection explains the development of Christmas music since the beginnings of Christianity and shows the evolution of the Christmas tree, holly, and ivy. The collection includes 25 Christmas carols on a CD, Full-color illustrated book, lyrics, and bonus songbook.

American Christmas Classics (Vol. #2)

This collection of 91 images and 47 songs (with lyrics) focuses on Christmas music as it evolved from the Revolutionary War to the 20th century, when America was immersed in the "Golden Age of Christmas Music." In the illustrated pages of the book, you'll see 91 images of Christmas cards and magazine covers from the Victorian Age, including works by Norman Rockwell, Grandma Moses, and others.

This classic Christmas carol collection includes songs from Bing Crosby, Nat "King" Cole, and Perry Como to name a few. Plus, many hidden gems are included that helped shape America's traditional holiday, such as The Cowboy Carol.

Kids will love hearing classic songs like Jingle Bells and Santa Claus Is Coming to Town, but they'll relish stories of how St. Nicholas became Santa Claus and the truth about Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

Children's Christmas Classics (Vol. #3)

Teach your kids how Christmas carols were used to educate and amuse children in the teachings of Biblical tales. They'll enjoy seeing illustrations from the 1890s to the 1930s and they'll love singing along to Toyland and The Twelve Days of Christmas.

With 58 images of fine art, lyrics to 26 Christmas songs, and special bonus songbook, your family will treasure this third installment of The Millennia Collection for years to come.

For the most historically authentic collection of the genre (Christmas music), there is but one choice: The Millennia Collection, from Christmas Classics Ltd. If Christmas (and beyond) is your season, this is the collection to have.
- USA TODAY: The Magazine of the American Scene

"The Millennia Collection" promises to be an outstanding series - the songs, their histories, historical context, and beautiful artwork. I received both volumes on Christmas Day, 2002,
and I am immensely impressed..
- Douglas D. Anderson, The Hymns and Carols of Christmas

* Plan on singing with the family at home by the fireplace or piano, or while trimming the Christmas tree. Such traditional classics as "O Little Town of Bethlehem," "The Twelve Days of Christmas," and nostalgic holiday songs as "White Christmas" and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" are sure to make this Christmas more joyous and bring out the child in all of us.

* Encourage friends to join in the singing of "Silent Night" and "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" in front of your neighbors' city stoop or country house.

* Visit a nursing home where your caroling will be met with open arms. Or volunteer to take part in the local performance of Handel's "Messiah" for a worthy cause, or support local churches by attending vesper services whose music program include glorious motets, Christmas concertos, and carol-hymns as "Adeste Fideles" and "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel." Such music will make you soar on celestial wings.

Make your parents and grandparents happy this year by including the glorious sounds of Christmas as part of your Christmas celebrations.

THE THRESHOLD

If, gentle reader, you will step across this threshold, now, as the moon rises in the keen Christmas air, and will find a place by the ruddy
ingle within-doors, you may hear, if you will, a Babel of voices from many lands, telling over the adventures of the road and falling into the good-fellowship of the happy Christmas season.

Here from the north, with his ample furs thrown back, sits the Russian in friendly talk with a gay little wanderer from Sicilian valleys. There, with elbow crooked by a foaming tankard, leans the German, narrating his perils and pleasures to a gallant Frenchman and a sunbrowned Spaniard who smoke and chatter together as now and then Mynheer stops for a pull at his pipe.

A Swede, Norwegians, an Englishman or two, and even a happy-go-lucky American, are clustered about the Yule-log; for the place you have entered is the common-room of the wide world.

As you slip the latch and take your seat, some traveller calls out: A Merry Christmas! Another cries: A story, a story! and so they fall to,
each from his own scrip taking forth a native tale,--and so they sit the midnight out listening and talking in turn; while the good cheer goes
round in endless abundance and laughter and song make interludes for the varied narratives.

Excerpt from "A Still Christmas"

Bright glowed the Christmas-logs on the capacious hearth till every pointed leaf and scarlet holly-berry shone in the generous firelight.

"Whosoever against holly doth cry,
In a rope shall be hung full high."

For, when the oak and ash trees babbled to the wind, and betrayed the Saviour's hiding-place, the holly, the ivy, and the pine kept the secret hidden in their silent hearts; and for this good deed they stand green and living under winter's icy breath, while their companions shiver naked in the blast. Not till the risen sun has danced on Easter morn
shall the oak adorn a Christian household and prove itself forgiven. The Christmas-pie--the Christ-cradle, as the Saxons used to call it--had
been baked in its oblong dish in memory of the manger at Bethlehem, with the star of the Magi cut deeply in the swelling crust. The Yule-dough,
cunningly moulded into the likeness of a little babe, had been carefully laid by as a sovereign protector from the evils of fire, floods, carnage, and--so say some ancient writers--from the bite of rabid dogs. Annis Vane, decked out in the bravest array her altered fortunes would permit, knelt by the blazing hearth. Her ruff was of the finest lace, and a row of milk-white pearls clasped her slender throat. She shaded her face from the fire, and piled up shining cones of bright-brown nuts that seemed to tempt the flames.

"All we lack now is the mistletoe," she said, half-despondently. "It was no easy task to find the holly and bring it home unnoticed; but we cannot gather mistletoe near London, and there is none for sale throughout the city."

"Of what use is the mistletoe," said the practical Cicely, "when we are but three women here alone? We can kiss each other as readily under a sprig of ivy, and we can fire our nuts without the help of man or lad, provided only we keep one in our minds. Of whom shall I think, Annis?"
she queried, wrinkling up her pretty forehead in anxious perplexity over so disturbing a doubt.

"You are far too young to think of men at all," answered Annis, reprovingly, and with all the conscious superiority of age. "Nor do you know enough as yet to make such pastime profitable."

Cicely's brows drew together with a frown which plainly indicated the nature of the retort upon her lips, but a glance from her mother checked her. "The word uttered in vexation is better left unspoken," said Mistress Vane, with gentle authority. "And I am waiting here, not to listen to disputes, which in these stormy times have grown wearisome, but to hear the Christmas carol promised me to-night."

Annis, with flushed cheeks, took down from the wall a little mandolin of Spanish workmanship, and, striking a few chords, began the carol, in which Cicely, after sacrificing some moments to ill-temper, concluded presently to join, her clear flute-notes rising high above her sister's
weaker tones,--

"When Christ was born of Mary free,
In Bethlehem, in that fair citie,
Angels sungen with mirth and glee,
In Excelsis Gloria!

"Herdsmen beheld these angels bright
To them appeared with great light,
And said, God's Son is born this night,
In Excelsis Gloria!

"The King is comen to save kind,
Even in Scripture as we find;
Therefore this song have we in mind,
In Excelsis Gloria!

"Then, dear Lord, for thy great grace,
Grant us in bliss to see thy face,
Where we may sing to thee solace,
In Excelsis Gloria!"

We wish you a merry Christmas
We wish you a merry Christmas
We wish you a merry Christmas
And a happy New Year.

Oh bring us some figgy pudding (3x)
With a cup of good cheer.

We won't go until we get it (3x)

We all love our figgy pudding (3x)

With a cup of good cheer
So bring it out here!

We wish you a merry Christmas (3x)
And a happy New Year.

I heard the bells on Christmas day
Their old familiar carols play.
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on Earth, good will to men.

I thought how, as the day had come
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along th' unbroken song
Of peace on Earth, good will to men.

And in despair I bowed my head
"There is no peace on Earth," I said,
"For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on Earth, good will to men."

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth He slee;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on Earth, good will to men."

Till ringing, singing on its way
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime, a chant sublime
Of peace on Earth, good will to men.

(Written by John of Hildesheim in the Fourteenth Century)

Here followeth the manner and form of seeking and offering; and also of the burying and translations of the three Holy and Worshipful Kings of Cologne: Jaspar, Melchior, and Balthazar.

Now when the Children of Israel were gone out of Egypt and had won and made subject to them Jerusalem and all the land lying about, so that no man durst set against them in all that country for dread that they had of them; then was there a little hill called Vaws, which was also called the Hill of Victory, and on this hill the ward of them of Ind was ordained and kept by divers sentinels by night and by day against the Children of Israel, and afterward against the Romans; so that if any people at any time purposed with strong hand to enter into the country of the Kingdom of Ind, anon, sentinels of other hills about, through tokens, warned the keepers on the hill of Vaws. And by night they made a great fire and by day they made a great smoke, for that hill Vaws passeth the height of all other hills in all the East. Wherefore, when any such token was seen, then all manner of men made ready to defend
themselves from the enemy that approached.

Now in the time when Balaam prophesied of the Star that should betoken the coming of Christ, all the great lords and all the other people of Ind and in the East desired greatly to see the Star of which he spake, and gave gifts to the keepers of the hill of Vaws, and moreover hired them with great rewards, that, if it so were, they saw by day or by night, far or near, any light or any star in the air other than was seen beforetime, anon they should show and send them word. And thus was it that for so long a time the fame of this Star was borne through all the
lands of the East; until, of the name of the hill of Vaws, arose up a worshipful and a great kindred in Ind, which is called the progeny of Vaws even unto this day; and there is not a more mighty kindred in all the kingdoms of the East; for this worshipful kindred came first from the King's blood that was named Melchior, that offered gold to our Lord, as ye shall hereafter learn.

In the year of our Lord 1200, when the city of Acon, that in this country is called Akers, flourished and stood in virtue, joy, and prosperity, and was inhabited richly with worshipful princes, and lords, and divers orders of men of religion, and all manner of men of all nations and tongues, so that there was no city like unto it in nobility and might; then, because of its great name and of the marvels that were there, the greatest of birth that were of the progeny of Vaws came out of Ind unto Acon; and when they saw there all things more wonderful than in Ind; then, because of delight, they abode there and
made a fair and strong castle for any king or lord. And they brought
with them out of the East many rich and wonderful ornaments and jewels.
And among all other jewels, they brought a diadem of gold arrayed with
precious stones and pearls, and about its edge stood letters of
Chaldaic, and a star made like after the Star that appeared to the Three
Kings of the East when they sought God, with a sign of the cross,
beside. And that diadem was Melchior's, the king of Nubia and of Araby,
that offered gold to the Babe in the manger. And afterward the master of
the Order of Templars received this same diadem of gold and many other
precious jewels; but when that Order was destroyed the diadem and
precious ornaments were lost, and have never been found unto this day.
Wherefore there was great sorrow made in all the country for a long time
after.

But these same princes of Vaws brought with them out of Ind books written in Hebrew and Chaldaic, concerning the life and deeds of these three blessed Kings, which books were afterward translated into the French tongue: and so, from these books, and from hearsay, and sight, and also from sermons and homilies out of divers other works, the story here written hath been brought together into one book.

And you shall understand that the old kindred of Vaws beareth always in its banner, unto this day, a star with a sign of the cross, made after the same manner as it appeared to the three blessed Kings.

Now it so happened that after Balaam had prophesied of this Star, the more it was sought for the more its fame increased through the land of Ind and Chaldee, and all the people desired to see it.