Definitely favourite single day of the year, actually

My favourite part of Christmas, best part of winter and possibly favourite single day of the year is fast approaching – next week is my school’s annual Carol Service. And unlike most UK schools’ carol services (if they even exist any more), ours is a huge traditional event, and I absolutely adore it – it’s an awesome day in London with my friends and music staff, we get to sing all day, and taking into account that the best part of Christmas for me are the songs and carols, then you’ll see why I love it.

There is a long version, which although much more interesting, was about 1000 words, so I thought I’d compress it for those of you prone to TL;DR. If you want to read the long version, the skip ahead a few paragraphs – I’m sorry, I can’t get my more tags to work properly yet.

SHORT VERSION

The choirs, which my friends and I are in, rehearse in the church in the morning, so we have to get up insanely early to meet at the station, attempt to get on the right train (“okay, we’re coming into the station now” “what carriage are you?” “last one” “I’m next to the last one, can you see us?” “no, where are you?” “NEXT TO THE FRIGGING TRAIN” “okay, wait there, I’ll come and find you” “IF WE DON’T GET ON TO THE TRAIN IN THE NEXT TWO SECONDS IT WILL LEAVE WITHOUT US, WHERE ARE YOU?” “wait…” NO, WE’RE GETTING ON THE TRAIN NOW” “… I think you’ve got the wrong train”), and then when we finally get into London, have the mandatory Starbucks stop before getting to the church and setting up, sometimes which involves precariously hanging over balconies to throw chairs at each other pass chairs very safely down for the choir to sit on.

So, we rehearse crazily and attempt to sing descants which involve reaching As (high, also impossible in the morning), half of which my choir haven’t seen because we’re awesome and need to do extra stuff instead. During the lunch break, after arguing what restaurant to go to (I could just direct my friends to my choice since they don’t have a sense of direction, but I’m a little more fair, unlike some people – see below), half the school and staff invade the Pizza places, and we all crowd into the girls loos to change after eating – also can be amusing.

Then there’s this really long service with a section where I have to stand up for about 10 minutes and every year wonder if I’m going to faint (hurry up with your Bible reading woman), and we all sound wonderful, then pack up and go home.

Come on, you know you want to read a 1000 word ramble on one of my favourite things

LONG VERSION STARTS HERE

Way back in the ’70s or whenever, each year a train was hired from wherever my school was then, and in the morning all the girls travelled up to London on the train with their teachers, and had this really old-school formal service in London. Well, we’ve scrapped the train, and it isn’t obligatory to go if you’d rather not for religious reasons, but it’s still a day in London, and it’s a huge tradition that everyone who attends comes to love.

Barring a couple of years, I’ve always been in the choir, so I’ve always had to be up early to travel in so we can rehearse in the church in the morning. For the past few years I’ve met up with friends at the station, usually seeing other girls and sometimes teachers there too. We all stand on the freezing cold platform for about 15 minutes because we’re far too early, because we have to catch the train that the rest of our friends are already on, and they’re the ones who like to leave a lot of time in case some disaster happens and we reach the church a few minutes late and miss out on some unpacking to do OH NOES. When the right train comes there’s always a scramble to get on it without getting mixed up with the dozens of other commuters, whilst also trying to ascertain from the person on the phone to a friend already on the train what carriage they’re in and whether this is actually the right train (“okay, we’re coming into the station now” “what carriage are you?” “last one” “I’m next to the last one, can you see us?” “no, where are you?” “NEXT TO THE FRIGGING TRAIN” “okay, wait there, I’ll come and find you” “IF WE DON’T GET ON TO THE TRAIN IN THE NEXT TWO SECONDS IT WILL LEAVE WITHOUT US WHERE ARE YOU?” “wait…” NO, WE’RE GETTING ON THE TRAIN NOW” “… I think you’ve got the wrong train”).

We did actually get the right train, in case you were wondering, they’d just got the carriage that they were in wrong. We usually manage to find each other, although in the case above (last year), we were only reunited when the group in the other carriage got off at the wrong stop, I happened to look out the window at the time and saw them merrily walking past, stuck my head out the doors (almost risking death I might add), told them to get back on the fricking train we weren’t there yet, and not to go anywhere else without someone who knew where we were going, aka me.

Well, after getting off at the correct stop, and then getting the correct tube line, ending up at the correct station, (“and now you see we’re next to Charing Cross, come on, you know where you are now, tell me you recognise where we are…” “oooh, Starbucks”), we walk along the road a bit, catching sight of other girls who have given up their morning lie-in and last minute christmas shopping to come and rehearse, until we get to Trafalgar Square, and St Martin in the Fields church. I’ve linked it to the website, because it is the most beautiful church, with absolutely amazing acoustics – the academy of SMITF is pretty famous for it’s music and has done numerous recordings (including the orchestration on the last two Nightwish albums, did’cha know?). Anyway, we arrive far too early, and so we get roped in to unloading the car full of music we bring down every year, moving around pews, or are part of a line of 50 girls snaking up the tiny, wooden, winding stairs up to the loft, passing chairs down. The latter can be interesting.

Once we get everything set up and in the right place, and when everyone has sat down, been moved, sat down again, realised that they’re sitting with the wrong choir and are moved again, found all their music, and I’m relegated to my usual place of front row, right in the middle (actually love it), we start singing. Usually for my choir, because we have other things we have to learn to sing the other choirs don’t, and we have a shorter space of time in which to learn them, this is often the first time we see new descants and carols, so for us it’s a crazy super-speedy learning morning as well as running through the other carols and descants. However, this is the first time most of us get to hear the solos and new songs, usually some of which the teachers have composed themselves, so it’s not all hard work. And singing insanely high descants really early in the morning is not only hilarious, but in a church like SMITF also sounds AMAZING.

We get about two hours for lunch, when we let one picky person bully and blackmail us into going to Pizza Express instead of Pizza Hut (“I refuse to eat ANYTHING in Pizza Hut, ew, it’s… dirty” – we’re talking a difference of maybe £15 per person, basically she’s just a snob. Love you really). I think Pizza Express has learned to open half an hour early for us on this particular day, because so many girls and teachers end up coming. After eating we all crowd into the toilets to change into our white blouses, long black skirts and heels, and then realise that we have presents to buy for the next day in the next 10 mins so we (attempt – the heels and long skirts make this somewhat difficult) run around the streets crazily looking for something to buy.

We get back to the church, and take our places (or rather, this year since they’ve finished renovating, we’ll be able to go downstairs, and then when the service starts and the first hymn begins, the choir will be processing around the church singing it). Half way through we all start to realise that London really does do something to your feet, and standing in heels for so long is not very comfortable. When we get near the end of the service, which usually consists of my choir singing, everyone standing up (which means us staying standing) for the ninth reading (which takes AGES to read, and the fact that it’s our headmistress reading it means that it takes even longer), and then another hymn, I begin to wonder what would happen if I were to faint, being in the front row and all, or whether I should chicken out and sit down very obviously in the middle of something before finding out. I’ve always managed it so far, thankfully, although last year I slipped my heels off when everyone else was fumbling for their sheet. I don’t think anyone noticed…

Anyway, the service ends, and we all crowd outside, and although sometimes we plan to go shopping afterwards, usually we’re too tired, and so we make our way home, either falling asleep on the train, or prancing around in other people’s heels whilst listening to a friend’s (the Pizza Express one) hour long, really fascinating talk on organ shoes. I know.

This year it will be a little different, as I’m travelling up much earlier with only one friend (yeah, the Pizza Express one), to do the bulk of the unpacking and setting up before everyone else. Since there are only going to be about six of us and one music teacher, who has promised to buy us breakfast in compensation for having to get up earlier than we would to have to get to school (I’m talking 6.55 train here), I doubt much work will actually be done, but that’s still to be seen. It’s all part of the fun, anyway.

Tags: carol service, christmas, Music, Nightwish, school, sing, story