On the calendar it is simply billed as Carols Around the Tree, but anyone who has stood on Reeth Green on a December evening knows it is something far richer than a line of text in a village diary.
This year arrived not with frost or crunching snow, but with drizzle. The sort that hangs in the air rather than falls, dampening coats, softening the edges of the night, and making the grass underfoot slick and shining under the glow of head torches. It was not especially cold, just properly Swaledale damp, the kind of weather that tests whether tradition really matters. As ever, it did.
As darkness settled, people gathered from all directions, hoods pulled up, woollen hats tugged down, hymn sheets folded carefully into pockets or held under arms. Head torches flicked on one by one, little islands of light appearing across the green. The Christmas tree stood quietly at the centre, lights blurred slightly by rain, colours bleeding gently into the night.
When the first notes sounded from Reeth Brass Band, the village seemed to draw in on itself. The band’s sound carried easily in the damp air, warm and familiar, wrapping around the green and drifting off towards the darkened houses beyond. It is a sound that belongs here, as much a part of Reeth as the green itself, and hearing it again marked the season more surely than any calendar could.
Voices joined in, some confident, some tentative, some cheerfully out of tune. It didn’t matter. Pages were held close to torches, glasses steamed, and laughter bubbled up between verses. Children shuffled and swung legs, adults exchanged nods and quiet greetings, and for a while the everyday pace of December eased its grip.
Photographing moments like this is never about perfection. It is about atmosphere. The way rain catches the light. The concentration on a musician’s face. The glow of a torch reflected in a pair of glasses. The shared pause between carols when the village breathes together. These are fleeting details, easily missed if you are not looking for them, but they are the details that tell the real story.
As the final carol faded and people began to drift away, the drizzle continued its gentle insistence. There was no dramatic ending, no fanfare. Just quiet conversations, footsteps heading home, and the sense that something small but important had been upheld for another year.
Carols around the tree on Reeth Green are not about weather, or even about Christmas songs. They are about continuity. About turning up when it would be easier not to. About standing together in the dark with damp sleeves and glowing hymn sheets, reminded that winter in Swaledale is as much about community as it is about landscape.
And in a season that often rushes past too quickly, that feels like more than enough.
