My favourite carol, updated

It might come as a surprise to some people that I have a favourite Christmas carol. Specifically, it is "Carol of the Bells." I find the music absolutely haunting in its beauty.

Today, I heard a modern version of it on the radio, called "Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24," performed by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and co-produced by Paul O'Neil and Robert Kinkel. Chom presented an interview with O'Neil this afternoon, in which he told the story behind this song. It is amazingly powerful.

( I've reproduced it behind here. )

With that as background, I present to you the only complete version of the song I've been able to find out the web, available at YouTube. I'm not too crazy about the video, but the audio is there, at least.

Watch it here.

Edited to add: I also found on YouTube a funny claymation of Carol of the Bell as well: watch it here.

Morning update

Today's breadcrumb is about Pharaoh's odd choice to kill the male children of the Hebrews.

Merry Christmas to those that celebrate it. While I don't, that doesn't mean I can't wish you all good holiday cheer and so forth. So, Merry Christmas!

In about an hour and a half, I'm going over to Ian's parents' for bake and salmon stew. It doesn't sound good, but trust me, precious, it is. Very, very tasty indeed. Mmmmm...

Also at some point in the next half-hour, I should do some paperwork for my ESL contracts and figure out what the smeg I'm supposed to be teaching tomorrow. With a little cajoling, the head of the school might even give me the CD I need for the afternoon class. Otherwise, things might get, erm, tricksy.

( And, in completely unrelated news, the Trustflow thingy for LJ. Who should be on my friends' list but isn't? Read on! )

So that's it for now. Off to make myself clean and presentable. TTFN.