Most 9 Lessons and Carols services are not lit by candles held by the congregation, the reason being that it is hard work keeping one alight for nearly two hours (in practice they have to be lit a little before the service begins and a full 9 Lessons and Carols lasts over an hour and a half). This year’s service in St David’s Cathedral was candle-lit (I believe last year’s wasn’t, although that may have been because I wasn’t in the nave then) and I just about kept mine alight until the final Hark the Herald, no mean feat when I was in a side aisle with a draught coming from somewhere behind me, and the best anyone in my block of seats managed. I could have got by without a candle for most of the service, though not for the Welsh translation of O Little Town of Bethlehem.
My location was also near a rather noise box of electrics which hummed increasingly loudly as the service went on, on a B so one just had to hope that the music was in G or another compatible key. Most of the choir music was familiar to me, although I didn’t know Mack Wilberg’s arrangement of Ding dong! merrily on high. I’m afraid that as last year the electrical interference was distracting but the choir seemed to be singing well.
I also got to Midnight Mass and the morning Eucharist on Christmas Day, which gave opportunities to admire the improvisations of Simon Pearce, the long-standing organist at St David’s. We had the Missa ad Praesepe again and on Christmas Day Haydn’s Little Organ Mass.