CHRISTMAS carols will echo across the county as communities unite to celebrate the festive season.

Churches are expecting to be packed as families join candle-lit services featuring treasured Christmas hymns and carols.

Young singers from Oxford Spires Academy, in Glanville Road, East Oxford, will join the Oxfordshire Young Singers and Oxfordshire County Youth Orchestra for the Lord Mayor of Oxford’s traditional Christmas carol concert tomorrow.

The concert at the Town Hall, in St Aldate’s, will raise funds for Lord Mayor Mohammed Abbasi’s chosen charities.

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Money raised will support East Oxford’s mental heath charity Restore and Unlimited Oxfordshire, which supports residents with physical and sensory disabilities.

Mr Abbasi said: “The Town Hall is a wonderful place to hold this event and I know it will be great fun to sing along with such fantastic choirs and orchestra. I am really looking forward to it”.

The Rev Simon Kirby, of St Mary’s Church, Cogges, Witney, said the church will host two Carols by Candlelight services tomorrow, followed by traditional carol services on Christmas Eve.

He added: “It’s one my favourite times of the year.

“I love it. It’s wonderful seeing all the visitors coming in, as well as our church family getting together and celebrating our saviour at this time of the year.”

Mr Kirby said traditional carol services were still very popular, with the church needing to host two candlelight carol services just to accommodate everyone who wanted to attend tomorrow.

He added: “It’s a very significant time for the Church in that we are remembering the birth of Christ.

“It’s our key season.

“It’s a time when people, within their traditions, like to reconnect with the story and what the story brings, which I think is a sense of hope.

“For many people it’s a time when they focus on peace, hope and joy.

“Many people find an awful lot of comfort in these services.”

CAROL SERVICES IN OXFORDSHIRE

OXFORD

  • Tomorrow: Lord Mayor’s Christmas Carol Concert, Town Hall, 2.30pm
  • Tuesday: Service of Nine Lessons and Christmas Carol Service, Christ Church Cathedral, 7.30pm
  • Christmas Eve: Service of Nine Lessons and Christmas Carol Service, Christ Church Cathedral, 3pm

WANTAGE

  • Tomorrow: Nine Lessons and Carols, Parish Church of SS Peter and Paul, 6pm

THAME

  • Tomorrow: Carols by Candlelight, St Mary’s Church, 6.30pm

BICESTER

  • Tomorrow: Carol Service, Bicester Methodist Church, 6.15pm
  • Tomorrow: Christmas Carol Service, Bicester Spiritualist Church, 3pm

STEVENTON

  • Today: Steventon Choral Society’s Christmas Concert, Steventon Village Hall, 7.30pm

ABINGDON

  • Tomorrow: Christmas Lessons and Carols, St Michael and All Angels, 5.30pm and Carols and Readings, 6.30pm
  • Tomorrow: Carols by Candlelight, St Helen’s Church, 5.30pm
  • Tomorrow: Carol Service, Trinity Church, 6.30pm
  • Tomorrow: Christmas Service with Carols, Abingdon Baptist Church, 10.30am

WITNEY

  • Tomorrow: Carols by Candlelight, St Mary’s Church, Cogges, 5.30pm and 7.30pm
  • Christmas Eve: Traditional Carols and Communion, St Mary’s Church, Cogges, 11pm

BANBURY

  • Tomorrow: Carol Service, St Leonard’s Church, 6pm
  • Tomorrow: Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, St Mary’s Church, 6pm

DIDCOT

  • Tomorrow: Carol Service, Didcot All Saints, 4pm

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