Think back to those times you’ve tried to tickets for Glastonbury or Taylor Swift or Oasis. You plan with friends well in advance how many tickets each of you is getting, set your alarm for the time they go on sale, make sure your computer is switched on and ready to go, and have your credit card ready.
That’s exactly what I went through one Sunday evening earlier this month. But I wasn’t trying to get tickets for one of the world’s biggest music festivals or the reunion of one of the biggest bands in UK music history. I wasn’t even trying to get tickets for the Stereophonics.
I was actually trying to get tickets for the Christmas Eve carol service at Llandaff Cathedral in Cardiff. It’s an absolutely magical experience like no other and clearly lots of other people feel the same because the cathedral now advertises months in advance precisely what time their tickets will go on sale.
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They did the same last year but I casually logged on around 30 minutes after they’d gone on sale only to find that they’d all sold out. I wasn’t about to make the same mistake this year. The date was in my Google Calendar well in advance and, on the day, I set my phone alarm as soon as I woke up.
Llandaff Cathedral is in a beautiful location, almost hidden from view until you’re right on top of it and looking down -Credit:Rob Browne
It has stood in this beautiful spot for centuries -Credit:Getty Images
The service at Llandaff on Christmas Eve is Nine Lessons and Carols. It starts just as dusk begins to fall. As you walk to the service the anticipation grows as you look forward to getting out of the freezing grey December cold and into the warm glow of the cathedral with hundreds of others.
The cathedral’s beautiful location only adds to the magic. At the foot of a steep slope, much of it remains hidden from view until you are right on top of it, standing on Cathedral Green before making your way down the Dean’s Steps or West Hill.
The service of Nine Lessons and Carols consists of nine short Bible readings, each one followed by a familiar carol. Things start off with something calm like Once in Royal David’s City, begun by a soloist before the rest of the cathedral choir and congregation join in, then building to the rousing Hark The Herald Angels Sing to finish. When the choir’s sopranos cut through the rest of the congregation for that song’s finale, there is no sound quite like it.
Inside Llandaff Cathedral at Christmas time for BBC Songs of Praise -Credit:BBC
Once the service has finished, hundreds of people filled with the magic of Christmas (and me usually with tears in my eyes) head out into the December darkness with just a few hours to go until Christmas Day. At this point, ducking into the warmth of one of Llandaff’s cosy pubs like the Butchers or The Heathcock is an incredibly good idea.
If you’re not one of the lucky ones to get a ticket, or if you just can’t make carols on Christmas Eve, there are plenty of other options for a magical carol service. And the next best in my humble opinion is the service in the chapel at the St Fagans National Museum of History. That service takes place in Pen-rhiw Chapel, which dates back to the 18th century and was originally in Drefach-Felindre in Carmarthenshire before being moved to the museum in Cardiff.
The centuries-old Pen-rhiw chapel, where people have worshipped for hundreds of years -Credit:Creative Commons
Inside Pen-rhiw chapel -Credit:Ethan Doyle White/CC BY-SA 3.0
In the chapel’s beautiful but austere interior, you can half imagine what it might have been like to attend a service there hundreds of years ago. It’s incredible. Merry Christmas.