University Blog: The Inside Story

This Christmas, we gave you our Christmas videos, and the very next day we added some blogs as well.

Christmas is associated with so many different kinds of music, but for many, there is one work that towers above all others – Handel’s Mess

There’s no doubt that music has an enormous impact on what makes the festive season festive. But what are the characteristics which make this music Christmassy?

It is a common myth that Cromwell abolished Christmas, but it is based on a misunderstanding. It was the devoutly religious and parliamentarian party, working through the elected parliament, which during the 1640s clamped down on the celebration of Christmas and other saints' days.

Christmas tradition depicts Santa Claus flying through the night sky on Christmas Eve in his parcel-laden sleigh pulled by a herd of reindeer.  Now, neither humans nor reindeer – nor indeed sleighs

The word Christmas came into English shortly after the Norman conquest, and grew out of the festival then referred to as ‘Christ’s mass’: the Christian tradition of taking holy communion/

Hoole, a suburb a mile north of Chester Cross, was lit up for the nineteenth year in a row on Saturday 24th November.