Article: THE SONGS REMAIN THE SAME FA LA LA LA LA... LA LA LA LA - Once passe, Christmas carolers are back, and striking a welcome note in the city

Music

As shoppers bundled in pea coats and scarves whisked by a storefront on Newbury Street last weekend, a blend of voices stopped some of them cold.

On the front steps stood a quartet of singers dressed in Dickensian garb, clutching songbooks and looking like the kind of genteel folks who lead Freedom Trail tours. The refrains, rendered in four-part harmonies as crisp as the evening air, were familiar:

"Deck the halls with boughs of holly/ Fa la la la la la la la la."

A young woman approached and tugged on her friend's coat sleeve: "Oh, look, they're singing ..."

She paused just a second to find the right words. "... Christmas carols."

A few minutes later an elderly passerby fumbled ...

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