Ruth Crawford Seeger was a modernist composer who also collected folk songs for children. Her book American Folk Songs for Christmas is a marvel. It begins with songs about stars and shepherds and tells the Christmas story through hymns and carols from the early days of Advent all the way to “Old Christmas” (Epiphany). This is one of the first songs in the book.
It was from the Seeger Family Singers that we first heard What Month Was Jesus Born In, a Children’s Chapel favorite. Ruth Crawford Seeger also set some of Carl Sandburg’s poems to music.