A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols

Cheryl Magness offers "5 Reasons To Attend A Lessons And Carols Service This Christmas" and if you can't attend, to hear:

.... If you have never attended a Lessons and Carols service, here are five reasons to do so this year, either at a local congregation, or thanks to the wonders of technology, on the other side of the ocean.

1) You Will Hear God’s Word

Lessons and Carols is not a musical concert or play, but rather the story of God’s plan for the salvation of mankind as revealed in His Word. That story begins with the Genesis account of the fall of Adam and Eve and concludes with the Word made flesh in the first chapter of John. Each reading is followed by one or more carols, allowing for further meditation on the text. You will leave a Lessons and Carols service veritably drenched in Biblical language.

2) You Will Sing, and Singing Is Good

People don’t sing enough anymore. (Instead, they listen to mass-produced music and possibly sing along.) Not only do people not sing anymore, they don’t sing together anymore. ....  A Lessons and Carols service is a unique opportunity to hear and sing songs that the larger culture mostly ignores.

3) You Will Unite with Christians Across Time and Space

You will be united across time and space, not just with those standing at your left and right, but with Christians around the world both today and in the past who have listened to the same readings and sung the same texts. ....

4) You Will Be Transported to Another World You will be transported to a world removed from the one with which you contend on a daily basis. ....

5) You Will Remember What Christmas Is All About

You will be reminded, as Linus reminded Charlie Brown, of “what Christmas is all about.” At this time of year there is no shortage of “Christmas.” It’s everywhere, but the world’s Christmas is not the Church’s Christmas. .... Christmas is “Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing,” and Lessons and Carols makes that abundantly clear. ....

“A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols” from King’s College will be broadcast live on BBC Radio 4 on December 24, 2014, at 10:00 a.m. EST. Listen live here. .... [more]

And if you're not functional or available at that time on Christmas Eve morning YouTube provides versions from earlier years including this from Christmas last:

5 Reasons To Attend A Lessons And Carols Service This Christmas