missypie

Every year when our church's Christmas Eve services start with "Once in Royal David's City", I wish I could be at Oxford for a service of lessons and carols. Has anyone ever been? Do they still do the traditional service? Is it super-hard to get in, like you need to stand in line for hours?

PatrickLondon

Well, I expect they do them in Oxford.

But what you're thinking of is at King's College, Cambridge, which is indeed done every year. Tickets are not easy to come by, but there is a made-for-TV version as well as the service that is broadcast live on Christmas Eve.

But plenty of churches and cathedrals will do something similar (indeed I believe the King's service was based on something developed at Truro Cathedral).

http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/chapel/ni...ons/index.html

http://digbig.com/4qmfw

flanneruk

Therers no Xmas Eve equivalent in Oxford of the King's, Cambridge, Xmas Eve lessons/carol service.

Christ Church has a similar, difficult to get into, service a week or two earlier. Most Oxford churches have a mini lesson and carol service for 45 mins or so prior to the main Xmas Eve midnight event, when there's the usual staggering Oxford range of variants on any Christian theme: the Oratorians, for example, offer a glorious interpretation of the Roman Martyrology (written, of course, by aarly Oratorian) for the day.

But no 3pm "Away in a Manger" to be had anywhere

missypie

I was thinking of the scene in "Shadowlands" (the movie about C.S. Lewis) where it's Christmas Eve and they go to Lessons and Carols ... the choir sings the same descant to "Once in Royal David's City" that we do and it's from the Oxford Book of Carols. I was thinking that C.S. Lewis was at Oxford, but I just checked and by the time he met Joy, he was at Cambridge. So I guess the service from the movie is at Cambridge and not Oxford?

henneth

In the latter part of his life he taught at Cambridge but continued to live in Oxford with Joy. The movie was cheifly filmed within Magdalen College in Oxford.

missypie

So the sevice of lessons and carols in the movie was filmed at Oxford, but probably didn't ever really happen at Oxford, and for sure doesn't happen now?

PatrickLondon

Looks like it. Itīs a fair bet that if it's in a movie and purports to be a fact, itīs probably wrong in a fair number of important details.

papagena

Oxford colleges each have a chapel and are very likely to have special Christmas carol services - but they'll be earlier than Christmas eve because the undergraduates go home for the Christmas holidays in early/mid December. College chapels are usually open to the public to attend worship.