We are almost half-way through Advent this year and the week began with the Second Sunday of Advent (Advent II, 7 December 2025). At noon each day this Advent, I am offering one image as part of my ‘Advent Calendar’ for 2025, and one Advent or Christmas carol, hymn or song.
As the choir in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church in Stony Stratford continues to rehearse this evening for the Advent and Christmas services, my Advent Calendar photograph today is of the posters on the church notice board with details of the seasonal music and services in Stony Stratford and Calverton.
My choice of an Advent hymn or carol today is the ‘Sussex Carol’, one of the carols or hymns the Choir in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church is rehearsing in Stony Stratford this Advent.
The ‘Sussex Carol’ is sometimes known by its opening words ‘On Christmas night all Christians sing’. Its words were first published by Luke Wadding (1628-1687), Bishop of Ferns (1683-1687). He included it in his collection Small Garland of Pious and Godly Songs (1684).
Both the text and the tune were discovered and written down by Cecil Sharp in Buckland, Gloucestershire, and Ralph Vaughan Williams, who heard it being sung by Harriet Verrall of Monk’s Gate in Sussex. The tune written down by Vaughan Williams was published in 1919.
The carol is often included in the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at King’s College, Cambridge, where it is performed in arrangements by either David Willcocks or Philip Ledger, both former directors of music at the chapel. Willcocks’s arrangement, which we are rehearsing in Stony Stratford, appears in the first OUP Carols for Choirs.
On Christmas night all Christians sing,
To hear the news the angels bring,
News of great joy, news of great mirth,
News of our merciful King’s birth.
Then why should men on earth be so sad,
Since our Redeemer made us glad,
When from our sin he set us free,
All for to gain our liberty?
When sin departs before his grace,
Then life and health come in its place;
Angels and men with joy may sing,
All for to see the new-born King.
All out of darkness we have light,
Which made the angels sing this night:
‘Glory to God and peace to men,
Now and for evermore, Amen!’
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