Mary, Did You Know?

I must leap to the defence (alright "defense" if you are on the other side of the "Pond" of my country's national anthem by saying that the stress comes on "God", "grac-", "God", "nob-", and so on:

God save our grac -ious Queen,
Long live our nob -le Queen,
God save the Queen!
Send her vic -tor -ious,
Hap -py and glor -ious,
Long to reign o -ver us,
God save the Queen!​

In speech, we naturally put the stress on the first syllable of words like "gracious", "noble", "happy", "glorious" and "over", and on the second syllable of "victorious". None of the "little" words like "the", "and" or "to" is stressed, so it is not the same thing as "Joy to THER world, / THER Lord IZZ come ... ".

In "My country, 'tis of Thee" (which is sung to the same tune as "God save the Queen"), I agree, the stress doesn't always come in the right places:

My country tis of thee,
Sweet land of lib -erty,
Of thee I sing.
Land where my fath -ers died!
Land of the Pil -grim's pride!
From every moun -tain side,
Let freedom ring!​

But no matter!
May I wish you all a bless -ed Christ -mas, and God's rich bless -ing in the New Year!