I grew up thinking everything I heard in Christmas songs was literal. There really were nine reindeer and they pulled Santa’s sleigh in the exact order of the song we all sang together! And I really did need to watch out and not cry because Santa Claus had some level of magical surveillance and was coming to town (or my mom would give me something to really cry about!)
So, in the same way, when it came to the Christmas hymns we sang at church, I thought of them, not as artistic interpretation, but as facts about the birth of Jesus.
As I grew older, I learned that the reindeer often ride in a different order, Santa uses our parents as informants, and the depths of the words of many of our carols tell more than the facts of the story of the first Christmas. They speak to the heart of the night Jesus was born.