A light in the darkness
‘Look, it’s sooo Christmassy’
A mum, with sparkling eyes, bent down to her little one. Very early visitors to the Priory, they looked in awe at the row of Christmas Trees in St Giles’ Chapel, as the volunteers prepared for the phenomenon - there is no other word to describe it - that is Priory Christmas Super Saturday.
Timed to coincide with the Arts and Crafts and Food Market in the churchyard and the switching on of the Great Malvern Lights, Christmas Super Saturday is a whirlwind of welcome and wonder. The Priory Benedictine Bakers had been hard at work, the refreshments rota had been meticulously curated, the tables decorated and the urns steamed and rumbled merrily. Musical groups performed each hour, after a brief prayer as the Priory clock chimed. The Friends’ Priory Shop did a roaring trade in all things Christmas and Priory, raising funds for the church. Prayers were said and written, and candles lit in the prayer area.
In St Giles Chapel, hemmed in by beautifully decorated Christmas trees from the Christmas Tree Festival, hundreds of children enjoyed an amazing array of Christmas crafts prepared and supervised by yet another rotas-worth of volunteers.
The Christmas Tree Festival - the inspiration of Custos, Dylan - led visitors from the North Aisle into St Anne’s Chapel. Schools, community groups, Priory groups; over 30 in all are represented in an amazing array of different decorative styles.
’Would you like to Join the Christmas Story? The volunteers at the new nativity scene asked. Hundreds of people, from patrolling police, a group of ladies celebrating a Significant Birthday, young couples, to children and whole families sat and stood carefully decorating peg dolls of themselves to add to the nativity scene.
’No matter where I am, a little bit of me will be on the way to Jesus’ a lady reflected as she blu-tacked her peg doll to the scene. A new big sister (all of five years old herself) made her six-day-old baby sister, too. ‘Let’s go near the sheep’. Many admired the troop of explorer scout peg dolls, following their flag-bearing leader. A family tagged on to the end of the scout procession. Soon the scene began to fill.
And then, all of a sudden, the lights went out.
On a gloomy and wet Malvern day, even at 2pm, without the main lights, the Priory became rather dark. There was an audible gasp as the lights went off, then everything settled again, rather crepuscularly, and the Vicar, Churchwarden and Custos team tried to work out what had happened. A powercut. A Phase 3 powercut, to be precise. Outside Priory control.
So everything continued, by the light of the emergency lighting and, rather more atmospherically, by the light of the Christmas Trees. Phone torches illuminated peg-doll decorators. Steve Boffy from the Arts and Crafts and Food Market brought in industrial grade fairy lights for the children’s areas and the U3A Ukelele band played on.
But there was no escaping the fact that as the afternoon drew on ambient light levels were dropping. With heavy heart, Roger the Vicar announced that, for everyone’s safety, the doors would be shutting from 3pm and the Priory closing from 3.30.
The visitors left and the volunteers cleared up and prepared the church for tomorrow’s services. Outside the main door, Roger and Peter stood, in the damp, apologising to the hundreds of people who they would have loved to welcome into the warmth of the church.
The power cut didn’t affect the switching on of the Great Malvern Christmas Lights - hurrah! - and the power eventually came back on in the Priory at 7pm.
All is not lost! The Christmas Tree Festival runs every day during Priory opening hours until 6th January, and you can decorate a peg doll to Join the Christmas Story, too. From Sunday there’s the new interactive Children’s Nativity Trail with a (small!) prize on completion…and there are services and activities from the fun of the Messy Church Gingerbread Nativity, to uplifting Carol Services, Christingles and the contemplative simplicity of Compline and much, much more. Check out Christmas at the Priory here and join the Christmas story.
