Nine Lessons and Carols

Experience Design | Lynn Valley United Church | December 2017/December 2019/December 2019

Over the 2017, 2018 & 2019 Holiday Season I was asked to design tech and visuals for the two major music events. For the past three years I have worked with with Lynn Valley United Church to design and write a modern version of the “Lessons and Carols” service. Traditionally this is a fairly dry event where a music leader leads the group through scripture readings and singing of traditional carols. 

In our version, each year a different family is asked to be the stars of the evening. The story and experience are written and developed to make use of their personal Christmas stories and represent them as a family, in particularly one of the children who so far have ended up taking on the role of “central” character. 

In the first year the story revolved around a family who is active in the church community. The focus was on the eldest daughter who has a good understanding of the Christian Christmas story, so that years story focused on the exploration of a young, socially conscious woman, asking questions about how to interpret a male-centric story, with sometimes questionable verbiage in the modern era. The concepts of tradition and interpretation of symbolism are interrogated. 

In the second year the family was new to the community and in fact did not normally come to Sunday services, instead preferring the less traditional offerings at the church. In this story the leaders of the church have forgotten that the event was happening that night, leaving the family to piece the whole thing together using their smartphones. When the leaders finally arrive the eldest boy of the family realizes that he understands the story differently than the leaders of the church, who are electing to leave out some of the more difficult to discuss points of the story. While the previous year’s story was about a spiritualist pulling the holiday to the mainstream, this year was about a mainstream individual pulling the celebrations toward the spiritual end. 

The goal of the piece is to feel natural, irreverent, and honour the family that is the star of the show. Since it only runs for one night of the Christmas season, this is personalized, intimate, one of a kind experience.