Advent processions, wreaths, and banners, Christmas markets and fairs, ice rinks, Christmas lunches, Light up a Life hospice services, shoppers’ carols, candlelight concerts, crib services, nativity plays and storytelling, Christmas tree festivals, Nine Lessons and Carols, Midnight Mass ……..and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of candles: This is what Christmas looks like in our cathedrals this Advent.
Wherever you are this Christmas, find a Cathedral near you.
At Winchester Cathedral, their famous Christmas market was named in the top ten best Christmas markets in the whole of Europe.
In Blackburn, a special version of Charles Dickens’ Christmas Carol will be staged inside the cathedral – the first play to be performed there for 25 years.
Special Advent banners have been hung in Ripon Cathedral ahead of Advent Sunday and Lichfield Cathedral is preparing to be transformed into The Cathedral Illuminated, a multi-award winning sound and light art installation with three external projections and 22,000 doves in flight in the nave.
This Christmas outside Liverpool Cathedral, a knife angel sculpture, made of 100,000 knifes surrendered during nationwide amnesties, will watch over – a potent reminder of those whose lives have been affected by knife crime and a national monument against violence.
Truro Cathedral will hold its popular carol service for pets and Manchester Cathedral has teamed up with Christian Aid to support peacekeeping around the world with its annual Christmas sing-a-long this year.
Chichester has already lit the way with an interactive laser Star of Bethlehem by Australian-born artist Jayson Haebich and York Minster will forgo its usual advent wreath for a star outside on the South Quire Aisle.
Chester’s choristers are preparing to sing their two annual Christmas carol concerts as well as all the regular cathedral services and services of Nine Lessons and Carols on December 23 and 24 and two services on Christmas Day.
Wakefield Cathedral will celebrate St Lucia – the bearer of light – with its sister cathedral in Skara, Sweden when the cathedral choir and youth choir of Skara visit to share their traditional St Lucia celebrations that bring light out of darkness.
Durham will display its unique nativity scene carved by retired miner, Michael Doyle, in 1975. It features a pit pony and the innkeeper is a miner, complete with miners’ lamp.
And Gloucester Cathedral’s choirs are limbering up for a marathon carol-singing session when their hugely popular Carols on the Hour and Christmas Market returns.
Find your nearest Christmas Cathedral here.
