Downtime: Our Christmassy recommendations

Premier Christmas Radio

An entire radio station dedicated to carols and faith-filled contemporary Christmas music? All our Christmases have come at once! Listen to Premier Christmas Radio, available now at premier.plus

Light all the lanterns

If you’re looking for a new favourite Christmas song to play while decorating the tree or making mince pies, this new track from British-American folk duo, Our Atlantic Roots, may fit the bill. ‘Light all the lanterns’ is an evocative take on the Christmas message, inspired by the 1914 truce during the first world war. Hopeful and soaring, listen now on all the usual streaming platforms. 

God of heaven and earth

We all know the Wise Men followed a star, but what exactly was it? A comet, a shooting star, something else?  

The starting point of this documentary is that the Bible is true and, when properly understood, science can help confirm it. With this in mind, American lawyer Rick Larson takes us on a quest to find the star of Bethlehem, using computer modelling and insights from astronomy. To the untrained eye, it seems pretty convincing. And then he goes a step further. The scriptures say that when Jesus died, there was an earthquake. Could physical evidence of that quake be uncovered 2,000 years later? Stream now or buy the DVD edifyshow.com/godofheavenandearth 

Christmas at Kew

The number of botanical gardens – and other attractions – wrapping their trees and buildings in a thousand fairy lights each December has been steadily on the rise in recent years.Kew may be the original and the best (get your tickets sharpish, they sell out every year) but from Cornwall’s Eden Project to Edinburgh’s Royal Botanic Gardens, there’s a winter wonderland nearby to stir your soul and bring some Christmas cheer. Let the light shine!