Record Breaking Numbers?

We’re in the middle of the busiest time at St James. Last night was the traditional Nine Lessons and Carols service, that had a record breaking 302 people attend – with people stood packed into the vestry, and stood in the North Aisle – apparently it got so hot in the building that the organ went out of tune… It certainly seems like we’re going to have to do the same as we do with the Christingle services, and run the whole thing twice next year in order to accommodate everybody who wants to attend.

Today we had the four Christingle services. We were on duty for the 2pm and 4pm services, with Beth acting as sidesperson and looking after the sound system, whilst I discovered a new calling as a doorman keeping track of who was coming in, and more importantly collecting unused tickets that people had got ‘just in case’ to allow the one or two people who turn up on the off chance an opportunity to get in. Thanks to the flu bug doing the rounds in the village there were quite a few returns, although at the 4pm, those were all used, and one family decided to come back for the 6pm service as there were no seats left at 4pm – so it looks like we’ll get somewhere between 600 and 800 people through the doors for those services alone – and we haven’t even got to Christmas itself.

The Midnight Communion is usually packed – so on the basis of the turnout last night we’re expecting to be jam packed – quite how we can expand capacity at that service I don’t know. We’re then back up for the 11am service tomorrow morning – although there is also an 8am and 9:30am service too. Certainly it’s looking like we may well have another record in terms of the number of people through the doors over the Christmas period.

We have a few pictures of the 4pm Christingle service up on my Flickr stream, although as usual with shots of this service the majority are restricted access because of all the children in the pictures.