Plea for pastors not to cancel church on Christmas

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Reepicheep said:
…wait, what?

Since when do Christians skip Christmas?😦
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Since the Puritans of the 1600s travelled to America and intentionally replaced Christmas and Easter with Thanksgiving. Christmas was reintroduced about 9 years after America became the independent America. Alas Easter never was.
 
I had no idea!!! This is shocking to me how they all justify not having Christmas Day services & how people don’t show up :eek:

Reading all of the comments are equally shocking
 
A few years ago this happened because Christmas was on a Sunday…

I don’t get it at all.

Sunday priority first and should be even more important when its CHRISTMAS. Easter is never cancelled, why should Christmas be?

Unless you live in a region that gets an enormous blizzard that PREVENTS going to Christmas services, then there is NO reason to cancel Christmas.
 
I think one of the main reasons was that services were canceled so people can spend Christmas with their family.

I know some people who think Christmas is all about family.

Silly me. I thought it was all about the Incarnation of Christ.
 
Reepicheep said:
…wait, what?

Since when do Christians skip Christmas?😦
Click to expand...
Some, like Seventh Day Adventists skip Easter and all Sundays. In the non liturgical protestant churches there is some amount of rejection of the Church calendar. But what I think primarily drives this is the death of Advent. Advent, whether considered as the strict liturgical season or just some time before Christmas, has become Christmas. And this culminates on Christmas Eve. Christmas itself has become not a Church holy day but a day to unwind from all the Christmas celebration that has replaced Advent.

Before I converted I was a member of a liturgical church that followed the Church calendar. Plenty of people would attend Christmas Eve services. But if Christmas fell on a Sunday a lot of folks wouldn’t be there. And if it wasn’t on a Sunday hardly anyone would be there.
 
There is no obligation to attend church services on Sunday or any holy day in most Protestant churches (not counting Anglican as I don’t know anything about them). It’s usually just considered a good idea. I grew up in several different Protestant churches & don’t remember any Christmas Day service. When I was young enough to be in Sunday School I was involved in the Christmas program, usually the Sunday evening before Christmas.

The Protestants we are friends with attend a church that is getting really close to Catholic. I’m sure they’ll be having saints & holy days before long. 🙂
 
Darryl_B said:
Since the Puritans of the 1600s travelled to America and intentionally replaced Christmas and Easter with Thanksgiving. Christmas was reintroduced about 9 years after America became the independent America. Alas Easter never was.
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Not quite. The Separatists had rejected Christmas as “papist” long before Plymouth. There was no organized “Christmas” in America to replace; the Christmas observance as we know it nationally didn’t come about until around 1850. Prior to then “Christmas” was largely ignored except by specific groups and regionally. Research shows that what we traditionally regard as the “First Thanksgiving” - really a harvest festival - was most likely in late September 1621, nowhere near the traditional date of Christmas. What we like to call Thanksgiving was only observed sporadically by presidential proclamation until Lincoln in 1863.
 
Bonnie said:
There is no obligation to attend church services on Sunday or any holy day in most Protestant churches (not counting Anglican as I don’t know anything about them). It’s usually just considered a good idea. I grew up in several different Protestant churches & don’t remember any Christmas Day service. When I was young enough to be in Sunday School I was involved in the Christmas program, usually the Sunday evening before Christmas.
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I grew up Presbyterian, and while I remember going to church on Christmas it wasn’t very often. Two places we were almost certain to go was to the party at the Masonic lodge and my grandparents’ house. As a teenager I sang in the choir and we would have 2 or 3 Christmas Eve services, but we never had anything on Christmas day. This was 30 years ago.
 
exnihilo said:
Some, like Seventh Day Adventists skip Easter and all Sundays. In the non liturgical protestant churches there is some amount of rejection of the Church calendar. But what I think primarily drives this is the death of Advent. Advent, whether considered as the strict liturgical season or just some time before Christmas, has become Christmas. And this culminates on Christmas Eve. Christmas itself has become not a Church holy day but a day to unwind from all the Christmas celebration that has replaced Advent.

Before I converted I was a member of a liturgical church that followed the Church calendar. Plenty of people would attend Christmas Eve services. But if Christmas fell on a Sunday a lot of folks wouldn’t be there. And if it wasn’t on a Sunday hardly anyone would be there.
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Could it be that less people attended Christmas Day services because they’re attending the Christmas Eve mass/service instead?

I’ve noticed this about my parish, which isn’t Catholic but we are obviously very liturgical. We have two Christmas Eve masses at 5pm and 10:30pm (the latter is such a high mass that it actually goes so long that it ends well after midnight on Christmas Day) and a 10am on Christmas Day. The two Christmas Eve masses are the much busier, the 10:30pm in particular is packed beyond the gills. The morning mass is very sparse by comparison. But part of why that is, is that most of the congregation has already attended Christmas mass the night before since evening and midnight mass would, in Catholic parlance, fulfill both the holy day and Sunday obligation.
 
Padres1969 said:
Could it be that less people attended Christmas Day services because they’re attending the Christmas Eve mass/service instead?
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Some years ago this was true in our parish, now the Christmas Eve Mass (no more Midnight Mass) has few people & the Christmas morning Mass is packed. As we’re older now, we’ll probably attend in the morning, unless the bad weather holds off. It’s hard enough to drive after dark now, & even harder when it snows.
 
Bonnie said:
There is no obligation to attend church services on Sunday or any holy day in most Protestant churches (not counting Anglican as I don’t know anything about them). It’s usually just considered a good idea. I grew up in several different Protestant churches & don’t remember any Christmas Day service. When I was young enough to be in Sunday School I was involved in the Christmas program, usually the Sunday evening before Christmas.

The Protestants we are friends with attend a church that is getting really close to Catholic. I’m sure they’ll be having saints & holy days before long. 🙂
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which church is that may I ask that is really close to being Catholic?
 
7_Sorrows said:
is this mainly for protestants? I thought all Catholic churches in America had Christmas Day Mass as well as Christmas Eve Mass.
Most protestant churches don’t have church on Christmas even if it is on Sunday.
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Yes, this is for Protestants.

Now I know why I’ve heard of Protestants going to a Catholic Church for Christmas
 
I once attended a baptism at a Congregational Church During advent
It turned out to be their regular Sunday Servive , collection and everything.
Interestingly they had advent candles and the readings were identical to the Catholic Church readings for that week but minister skipped all but the Gospel
I had always thought that Church was the epitome of Puritanism apparently they have changed.
I double checked the name on the Church on the way out.
 
phil19034 said:
Yes, this is for Protestants.

Now I know why I’ve heard of Protestants going to a Catholic Church for Christmas
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We’ve known Protestants to come to our Easter Vigil. I’m going to have to take a look around & see if any come for Christmas this year.
 
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