If you’ve peeked ahead in the calendar - as I’m sure many of you have - you’ve probably noticed a perplexing phenomenon that occurs with a certain regularity: this year, Christmas Eve falls on a Sunday.

“What are we going to do?!” members of the Altar and Flower Guilds have asked me with alarm.

“Trust me,” I’ve told them, “the clergy and staff feel your pain.”

To go from Advent IV to Christmas Eve in the space of a few hours is, to say the least, a jarring experience. In that short time, we jump from penitential purple to dazzling white, from liturgical plainness to overflowing poinsettias.

How to handle the transition?

Months ago as a staff, we talked about it and settled upon two solutions.

The first one is pragmatic: given that we will have two services on Christmas Eve (6:00 and 10:30 pm), during the morning we will be on a holiday schedule, with services at 8:00 and 10:00 am.

The second solution is liturgical. While we will have our usual celebration of the Holy Eucharist at 8:00 am, at the service later that morning, we will be offering A Festival of Lessons and Carols.

This quintessentially Anglican service has its origins in Victorian England. In 1880, Edward White Benson, Bishop of Truro, devised an order of Nine Lessons and Carols for use at the cathedral on Christmas Eve. Two years later, he was named Archbishop of Canterbury, an office he held for fourteen years. Archbishop Benson’s increased stature gave his liturgical creation wider exposure, and the use of this Festival eventually spread throughout England.

The best known adaptation of it was inaugurated at King’s College, Cambridge, in 1918. The BBC began broadcasting it in 1928, and now millions from around the world tune in each year.

Traditionally, the service begins with the hymn “Once in Royal David’s City” and concludes with “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.” In between, lessons from both the Old and New Testament are interspersed with related carols and anthems.

The lessons and lyrics first dwell upon the prophecies foretelling Christ’s birth, then recount the birth itself, and finally reflect upon the significance of that birth for the salvation of the world.

Because congregations generally wish to preserve the celebration of Holy Eucharist on Christmas Eve (as that, after all, is the “mass” in “Christmas”), many of them offer the Festival during one of the earlier weeks of Advent. With Advent and Christmas Eve this year falling on the same day, it is all the more fitting to combine the two observances, with the Festival in the morning, and the Mass at night.

And so, I hope that all of you will resist the advertisers’ call to spend the morning of December 24 frantically finishing your Christmas shopping, and instead come out and immerse yourself in a truly spiritual experience, one that will prepare your heart to receive the joys unleashed in that holy birth on that holy night.