Why all parents should let their kids experience Midnight Mass

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It’s a nice idea but after about 6 months of age, my kids are only “peaceful sleeping babes” in their beds or car seats. They don’t fall asleep at church or anywhere where there are things to see. Even if behavioral standards are lowered (and I’m guessing that’s a parish by parish and parishioner by parishioner thing), I doubt my kids would meet that standard at midnight.

That said, I know some families with kids who this works wonderfully for. For ourselves, I do look forward to the day that most of my kids can handle a Mass at that time and we’re brave enough to venture it. This is just one area where I think a blanket statement that all parents should do x, y, z is misplaced.
 
That’s funny. I don’t know of any local OF true midnight Mass. They all seem to start at 10 pm. The only true midnight Mass I know of, is surprise the local EF Mass.
 
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Ours has a true midnight Mass as well as a 10 pm one. Not only is it OF but the true midnight Mass is the one they encourage teens to go to.
 
I’m aware of one parish church with midnight Mass at midnight. The rest all start “Midnight Mass” at 7, 8, 9 or 10 pm. Even many of the cathedrals are having it at 10 pm nowadays. You have to hunt around for a true Midnight Mass at Midnight.

The last three “true Midnight” Masses I went to were at St. Peter and Paul in Philly, St. Patrick in NYC, and the one parish church I mentioned above.
 
Dacinom said:
Honestly though, we went to Midnight Mass when I was a child and It’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Just my two cents.
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I tend to agree. I think when I was young, some families had a tradition of getting together, going to Midnight Mass and then they got to all sleep in the next morning rather than having to get up and go out to one of the morning Masses. In those days there were also not Christmas vigil Masses happening on Christmas Eve all over the place starting at 4 pm; you either went to the Midnight Mass or you went on Christmas morning. By contrast, this year my local parish actually had more vigil Masses on Christmas Eve (four of them) than it did morning Masses on Christmas day (three of them).

My mother never wanted to go to Midnight Mass because she liked to use the late hours of Christmas Eve to finish up her last-minute Christmas preparations, like wrapping presents, putting out the baked goods and breakfast items, etc. after me and my father went to bed. So I never went as a child. As an adult I was anxious to see what Midnight Mass was like, having heard so much about it. I discovered that while some churches make an effort to have an extra special Mass with special music, etc., at a lot of other churches it’s basically just the same Mass you’d get at 10 am the next day, but happening at midnight.
 
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LilyM said:
My main memories of Midnight Mass as a youngster are simply of struggling hard just to stay awake through the thing … much prefer a daytime Mass and always have.
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Same here. I remember my mother having to take me out to the car because I was so sleepy I felt nauseated.
 
My parish and our Cathedral both have Midnight Mass. The Midnight Mass at my parish is in Polish so I go to the 7pm English Mass
 
What an odd opinion. I would think most people know that the only “should” is go to Mass period. As to special memories, I would also think most people know that there are a myriad of family traditions that people across cultures and around the world share. Our tradition is Christmas Eve Mass, and it is as part of my family’s tradition and just as meaningful as anyone else’s Midnight Mass tradition.
 
We have a beautiful true midnight Mass at our Cathedral, and the church was full to the brim last night with all ages. That’s kind of sad to hear that it’s become rare.
 
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I was actually surprised that Philadelphia still has Midnight Mass at midnight, since unlike NYC it’s not really a 24-hour city and public transportation isn’t really available. It was indeed full though. They never seem to have trouble filling that place for any special Mass.

Of the other cities I’ve checked, only Baltimore has one midnight Mass at its old downtown Cathedral, while the big Mass with the Archbishop is celebrated at 10 pm in the other Cathedral out in the suburbs. Cleveland, DC, Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati all have their Cathedral “Midnight” Masses at 10 or 10:30 pm. Wilmington DE , which to be honest is a city where I wouldn’t want to be walking around at night, actually has the big Mass with the Bishop at 4 pm and has a “Midnight” Mass at 10 pm in some other historic church.
 
We went to 5 PM Vigil mass this year.
My only memory of Midnight Mass with children is when I took my two and a half year old son, and he threw up a massive amount in a packed church. I managed to catch most of it in my coat, and the parishioners were amazingly kind, understanding and helpful.
However, I’d prefer not to repeat that experience.
 
Yes @Tis_Bearself , in England .

Midnight Mass did go out of fashion here for a while , but now it is becoming the norm

In our parish we had 7pm Vigil Mass , then Midnight Mass and two Masses on Christmas morning .
 
I could never stay awake that late. After 10 p.m., I"m a crabby, non-thinking zombie. 🧟‍♀️

I would be more up for a 5:00 a.m. Mass. I woke up/got up at 3:30 a.m. this morning. 😃
 
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