Traditional night-time Christmas service with carols and a Mass sung by the Cathedral Choir's girls and lay clerks.
Midnight Mass is back at St Albans Cathedral on Christmas Eve, 24 December. It's one of the Cathedral's most popular services, and for good reason: it's the first Christmas Day celebration of the lot, marking the moment Christmas Eve gives way to Christmas Day. The service centres on the Eucharist, a traditional night-time honouring of the bread and wine, and it's the point where the Christmas celebrations properly kick off.
The music comes from the Cathedral Choir, with the girls and lay clerks singing popular carols alongside an atmospheric performance of a chosen Mass. It's a service that leans into the tradition of the night, and the choir's presence is a big part of that.
There's a fair bit of history to the building itself. St Albans Cathedral is the shrine to Britain's first saint and the oldest site of continuous Christian worship in the country. It's home to the oldest cathedral tower in Britain, with 211 steps to the top. The service also recalls the story of St Alban, whose stand for belief took British Christianity to its beginning.
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On the practical side, the service starts at 11:00pm on 24 December and runs through to midnight on the 25th, so you'll be seeing in Christmas Day right there in the pews. Doors open at 10:20pm, and no tickets are required. The Cathedral is at Sumpter Yard, St Albans, AL1 1BY.
