This year’s Celebration of Christmas was in fact a double celebration for Macmillan Cancer Support. Not only was it Macmillan’s 15th annual Christmas concert at Christ Church Cathedral, but 2011 also marked 100 years of charitable work by Macmillan. Following tradition, the event brought a notable line-up including Oxford’s Schola Cantorum chamber choir and readers Sinead Cusack, Freddie Jones, Jeremy Paxman, Patricia Routledge and Jeany Spark, all of whom came together to welcome in the festive season and support an ever-worthy cause.

As a venue for a Christmas concert, Christ Church Cathedral surely tops the list. Passing the twinkling fairy-lit Christmas tree in the quad before joining the expectant congregation ensures the right ambience even before the concert has begun.

The audience was invited to participate in several timeless Christmas carols, with the Schola Cantorum choir taking over — thankfully — for those hymns of a slightly more Latin ilk. A striking arrangement of O Adonai, seemed to have an especially lasting effect, as total stillness reigned until the final haunting strands had dispersed.

Freddie Jones’s wonderful portrayal of characters in readings of The Messiah, by an unknown parishioner of St Swithun’s Church, and a section of Truman Capote’s A Christmas Memory, can take credit for much of the night’s laughter. Sinead Cusack and Patricia Routledge both added their own particular brand of poetry to the proceedings, while Jeany Spark offered up a lively piece from Geoffrey Willan’s How to be Topp.

The final reading of the evening came from Jeremy Paxman who gave us an extract from a letter sent from the trenches in Northern France, on that now famous Christmas Eve in 1914. This reminder that peace can prevail even when Christmases are far from merry, was followed by a choral rendition of Silent Night performed in German.

A Celebration of Christmas proved to be exactly what the name suggests: a good night for all.