Is tonight Twelfth Night or is it tomorrow Wednesday? Tonight Tuesday used to be Twelfth Night for everybody but by the time of the Restoration in the mid-17th century it had become the custom to keep Twelfth Night on 6 January. Samuel Pepys wrote on 6 January 1665: ‘At night home, being Twelfthnight, and there […]

Just after 3pm on Christmas Eve you can hear on Radio 4 the start of the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King’s College Cambridge. In the gathering darkness the famous service will take us into Christmas night. Christmas cannot be cancelled. No party, no turkey is not the same as no Christmas. The […]

Mary and Joseph are said to have set out today from Nazareth on their 90 mile journey to Bethlehem which they reach on 24 December. It was once the custom in monasteries to toll the loudest bell as each of the O Antiphons was sung over the coming days to remind people that Mary and […]

Firecrackers in Naples at 5.50am this Sunday morning will have welcomed the feast of Santa Lucia. In normal times the church near the waterfront would have been open all night following an eve of feast street procession at 10pm. In Venice at San Geremia, where many visit the body of St Lucy and candles glow […]

The feast of Our Lady of Loreto, also called the Translation of the Holy House, today Thursday 10 December marks the arrival at Loreto in Italy of the house where Mary lived and heard from the angel that she was to give birth to the Messiah. The little house arrived in 1294. The journey of […]

The Immaculate Conception on 8 December does not celebrate the conception of Jesus but the conception of the Virgin Mary by her mother Anne following normal sexual intercourse with husband Joachim. Mary’s birth, after Anne’s nine month pregnancy, is observed on 8 September. The announcement of the Virgin Mary being pregnant with Jesus without sexual […]

Advent is not Christmas but this weekend 5-6 December we can think about Father Christmas because he is derived from St Nicholas. Or is he St Nicholas as in Holland where last night children this Saturday will put out their shoes hoping for a present? This year St Nicholas does not get his usual a […]

As we enter Advent, the first weekday Monday 30 November is St Andrew’s Day St Andrew is the patron of Amalfi , Barbados, Greece, Russia, Scotland, the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul and fishermen. It’s a holiday in Barbados where the crest of the coat of arms is two sugar cane stalks forming a St Andrew’s […]

Advent starts tonight as darkness falls. Saturday Evensong is the first of Advent. Tomorrow is Advent Sunday when we light the first candle on the wreath. But it’s not Christmas. However, it could be the start of a Slow Christmas as we try to live out the lovely special days and significant steps of Advent […]

This last Sunday before Advent is known as Stir Up Sunday due to the Book of Common Prayer collect for today. This old name is much used now as it is linked to the idea of stirring the Christmas pudding although most puddings will have been maturing for some time. Many Anglicans can expect hear […]