Jerry Manning rings a bell near his Salvation Army red kettle in downtown Seattle, Nov. 23, 2007. (Ted S. Warren/AP Photo)

Listen closely. The sound you may not be hearing this holiday season as you stumble from mall to mall is the tinkle of silver bells.

Of course if you live in a big city like Toronto, you may not be able to hear much of anything over the din of harried holiday shoppers and the incessant sound of cellphones with their Babel-like ringtones.

But listen some more. It's a subtle thing. Where is the chingle, chingle, chingle of the Salvation Army bells?

The Sally Ann bell-ringers themselves are there — in most of the big malls and by the subway stations and liquor stores — with their distinctive red kettles.

But check out their hands (it can be easier, sometimes, than looking them in the eye). Most have no bells. No little leather belts of jingling chimes to draw attention to their existence.

It is one of those trends that has been quietly sneaking up on us for a few years now — the silent bell-ringers, for that is what the Sally Ann volunteers are called. Another oxymoron to slip under the artificial tree.

Silver bells

What is going on this year with bells and Christmas anyway?

In Ottawa, some parents are upset that their local school tried to change the words to the Christmas song "Silver Bells" to make them, well, less Christmasy.

You can see why people might want to raise alarms about things like this, little traditions that slip away. Still, you have to feel for the teachers.

The program for the recital had a song about Hanukkah, a couple of other Christmas songs and one in French. Why not have one in there that is more (sigh) inclusive? Isn't that the Christian message?

And is "Silver Bells" really a song to get all worked up about? It's not very Christmasy, unless you think that hymns to shoppers rushing home with their treasures is what this occasion is all about.

As for the Sally Ann, yes, there has been a bit of a bell-ringing drop-off over the past three or four years, concedes Andrew Burditt, the Salvation Army's Toronto-based public relations director. Big stores and mall owners felt the constant jingle was turning off customers.

"It varies from locale to locale. But we have simply tried to be respectful of the fact that people are trying to conduct their business."

Still, this year the century-old charity made "a concerted effort to bring the bells back a little bit," Burditt says. "Although we don't want to ring them incessantly."

Alas, not everyone heard the message.

Who was listening?

They did hear in Vancouver, mind you. At least three large malls that had banned the bell-ringing last year were willing to give it another try, the local Salvation Army chapter reported earlier this month.

Winnipeg took a bit of persuasion. Two of the biggest malls there refused to allow the Sally Ann sleigh bells to ring this holiday season. But after the issue was raised in the local media and some people complained, Portage Place swung around and is letting the Salvation Army bells ring out during this last week of Christmas shopping.

Toronto is a different story. When last heard from, the Salvation Army volunteer in the basement entrance to the Bay at Bloor and Yonge was making enough noise to ring the saints in.

But outside the tony Yorkville stores nearby, as well as all through the shopping mecca that is the Eaton Centre and even in the little mall across from the CBC, the bells are silent.

No ringing. No bells in hand even or anywhere to be seen. "The merchants find it too noisy," confided one kettle-guarding SA volunteer. "We're not allowed."

Do bells matter?

Christmas bells have been part of Salvation Army fundraising since sometime in the 1890s, when its Victorian founders employed them to draw attention to the charity's many good deeds.

Are they effective? Montreal organizers seem to think so. This year, they abandoned their bus shelter ads in order to employ 16 drama students and professional entertainers to stand on downtown street corners and jingle their hearts out.

Of course, the Montreal branch raised only a paltry $90,000 during their Christmas campaign last year, a small drop in the almost $13 million that was jammed into Salvation Army kettles across the country. So they need to do almost anything to get their numbers up.

Within the Salvation Army, there seems to be a consensus that bells are important. That they draw attention to the cause. That they have become part of the fabric of the Christmas season.

Not surprisingly, an online poll on the Christian charity's website comes to the same conclusion. Though the army's brass is ever mindful that its volunteers are always guests on the marble floors of today's temples of consumerism.

But do bells really affect the bottom line? According to Burditt, the Greater Toronto Area is at nearly 74 per cent of its $2 million fundraising goal this season. B.C. is doing well, too, as is Ottawa, which was one of the first places where bell-ringers were shushed about a decade ago.

Other large centres are in the 55-60 per cent range of their individual goals, with the all-important last week still to come.

The big exception is Calgary, a city of notorious givers, which is only at 37 per cent of its objective.

But the problem there is not bells or noise of any kind. "It is just a time issue," observes Burditt. "Almost everyone is working in Calgary these days. The economy is doing well, unemployment is almost zero. We are having trouble finding people who can volunteer."

That problem is so acute in some places that the Salvation Army even pays some of its volunteers to volunteer and has been for a few years now. The chimes are changing.