Long before the Old Christmas at Clay Hill program began Tuesday night, the lanterns were flickering and the cider was steaming.

The historic one-room church was decorated with cedar, pine and berries. The setting was one of simplistic beauty, said Shelia Jackson, a featured singer at the annual celebration the birth of the Christ Child and the arrival of the Wise Men to worship him.

Old Christmas is celebrated on January 6 each year at Clay Hill Church in Pronto. For most who come, it is a tradition. For those who come for the first time, it is a “wondrous” experience.

Jackson said “wondrous” was the word she heard over and over following the service.

“And, it is exactly that,” Jackson said. “I remember the first time I went to Old Christmas. It was a wondrous experience and it was again last night. Old Christmas is a service that touches your heart. It’s what Christmas is all about. It’s a celebration of the true meaning of Christmas.”

Jackson sang “Sweet Little Jesus Boy,” which is a spiritual not often sung at Christmastime.

“But it should be,” Jackson said. “The words convey a message that we need to hear at Christmas. ‘Sweet little Holy Child, we didn’t know who you was. We didn’t know you had come to save us, Lord, to take our sins away’ but as the song says, ‘Jesus done taught us how,’ even when He was dying on the cross.

“We walk by faith not by sight and Jesus taught us how we should live–in peace and in love. And, that’s what you experience at Old Christmas, peace and love and in a simple place without all of trimmings that we think we have to have at Christmas. Jesus was a simple man and at Old Christmas we celebrate his birth in a simple way.’

Mike Amos has missed only a few Old Christmas celebrations and he said, too, that it’s the simpleness of the celebration that warms his heart.

“Old Christmas prolongs the Christmas season,” he said. “It takes Christmas past the hurry and rush of the season to a simple place. What I like so much is the reverence of the celebration and the coziness of that old wood church. I get a blessing every time.”

Amos said Old Christmas is unique to other Christmas services.

“What I enjoy, too, is the variety of the music. The congregation sang a lot of the familiar Christmas songs like Away in a Manger and Silent Night and there was bluegrass music and spirituals and folk music. It was all wonderful and, of course, we heard the reading of the Christmas story and the candlelight service is the perfect way to close the Old Christmas service.”

Hot apple cider and homemade teacakes are served as the worshippers leave the church and Amos, laughingly, said that puts the icing on the cake.

Old Christmas at Clay Hill will be on January 6, 2016. All are invited.