found: Grove music online WWW site, July 13, 2010:entry for aguinaldo (a generic term used in Venezuela for both religious and secular Christmas songs. Melodies are usually in 2/4 or 6/8 metre. Aguinaldo can be used to mean a 'Christmas gift.' Musical 'cards' are often performed by itinerant musicians or ordinary people, moving from house to house as part of the parranda, a tradition where in return for a song a gift may be given); entry for Puerto Rico, Traditional music, Hispanic genres (aguinaldo; religious music in Puerto Rico centres on the aguinaldo and the villancico, both descendants of the 16th-century Spanish villancico. In modern popular usage the two names are almost interchangeable and refer to a specific repertory of well-known songs whose texts deal with the Christmas cycle. The most common themes are the Nativity, the Three Kings and praise of the Virgin or Child. The melodies are usually in simple or compound binary metre; the rhythmic syncopation that many aguinaldos or villancicos display may be the result of African influence, although this has not been fully investigated)