The disaster that is Christmas

[Mithras]

I have held the view for some time now that the biggest liability with which Christianity has to contend is Christmas. I'll say no more at this point, wishing to invite comment, but those who know me will prabably know what I mean. Liturgy is not excluded from the discussion.

M

[SOP]

I saw a Christmas tree all decorated and lit up in someone's house as I was driving home this evening. The outside santa lights have been up for about a week on another house but the sight of the Christmas tree in someone's lounge just seemed quite sad.

I don't even put out my crib until after Midnight Mass so neighbours think I am miserable because I am not doing anything for Christmas!

I love the Christmas music, the carol concerts, all of it. But it annoys me it all stops on Christmas Day.

[johnquinn39]

I think that Christmas epitomises the huge gulf between the official liturgy of the Church and what most people actually believe (which is not very much).

To me, funerals are another disaster.

[Mithras]

The reason, I think, why Christmas is a disaster for Christianity is that for many - far too many - people, that is all they know of Christianity and let's face, the ingredients are not far removed frrom those of a Walt Disney film. It's sweet, folks, especially with the Franciscan additions, "three kings" ( actually magi, probably Zoroastrian priests, of an indeterminate number). And people don't need "sweet". I think they may want it, and so we give it to them, and far too early as well! Stephen Dean's article in last week's Tablet is worth reading on this aspect of our seasonal liturgies and paraliturgies. But, as our PP said in a sermon one midnight Mass, the shadow of the Cross falls upon the manger - literally in the church I attend and I suspect many others. Were I to be aske to write the Pope's Chrstmas sermon - I commission I have yet to be awarded, though I await daily the crested envelope summoning me Romewards - I would start at the end of the story as it were - the Passion and Easter narratives and then work back to the birth. Because it seems to me that for the majority Christianity begins and ends with Christmas and you can't have the fun bits without the somewhat more uncomfortable events that took place 33 years later. Any chance of injecting some realism into our Christmas celebrations - and if it stirs things up or even upsets will that matter too much?

Mithras

[monty]

This may be controversial but ... how many choirs stop singing Christmas music as soon as Christmas Day has gone?

Liturgically the Christmas season begins then. I knew one church who kept their crib going until February 2nd and always explained why.

We may complain Christmas is "celebrated" too early but what do we do to let non-Christians know when Christmas really starts and finishes?

[Southern Comfort]

I knew one church who kept their crib going until February 2nd and always explained why.

Not an isolated instance by any means. I have encountered numbers of churches who also don't end the Christmas season until the 'Feast of Lights'.

[lor]

Well in my home parish (in Canada), the church is now fully decorated for Christmas. The only thing missing is baby Jesus in the manger. And yesterday for Advent 2 the choir sang "Ring Christmas Bells" at communion. Sigh.

[musicus]

Welcome to the forum, Ior!

Sadly, this 'creeping Christmas' seems to be a world-wide phenomenon - at least in 'developed' nations, where commercialisation calls the tune. No doubt the same would have happened with Lent and Easter if Holy Week had not been so well-established.

[gwyn]

The "Carol Service a week before Christmas" is partly responsible for this creep. It was always done for the best of reasons: "people go away after St Stephen's Day" and the like, but it has unwittingly colluded with the shops in moving the leading edge (imhyho).

[FrGareth]

At least my local "Churches Together" organises their carol service on the Sunday following Christmas!

Schools not being in session during much of Christmastide (and the 2 week gap to forget rehearsed material) is the main driver for "Christmas in Advent" methinks!

[Southern Comfort]

Some schools have finally got the message that, in the same way that you don't sing Easter Hymns during Lent or Holy Week, you shouldn't be singing Christmas carols during Advent; but they are few and far between, alas. There is in fact a lot of material that can be sung during Advent ─ it's just that schools don't look for it.

I don't think that the rationale normally offered really stands up ─ "If we don't do it, the kids won't have any religious experience of Christmas at all, since their parents never go" ─ but I tell schools that if that's really what's driving this, why not have an Epiphany party and 'Christmas retrospective' once the kids are back in January. I know that some have taken this up.

What's really driving the Christmas production is that the parents want to see their offspring performing, and the school wants to show off how well it can do. However, I now have experience of a number of schools putting on Advent productions which do the same things just as well, and which don't anticipate the feast but prepare for it.

[Anne]

I spent five years living at Ecce Homo Convent in the Old City of Jerusalem. It was the one place where I have lived where we could really celebrate Advent. Because we were a few Christian houses in the middle of the Moslem quater, not far from Jewish Israel, there was no Christmas hype in the media or the shops. The Municipality of Jerusalem give out Christmas Trees on 23rd Dec to Christian households as a good will gesture, so Christmas eve was spent decorating the tree and the rest of the house. On Christmas night we would have Midnight Mass in our house and then we would walk to Bethlehem (about 2 hours walk) and have the Mass at Dawn in the church of the Nativitiy. Then we would spend the next 12 days celebrating Christmas.

I was in Tesco yesterday, carols blaring out, surrounded by mince pies (two for the price of one) and tacky decorations, feeling very nostalgic for the sence of waiting we experienced in Jerusalem

[mcb]

you shouldn't be singing Christmas carols during Advent

I don't share the aversion to non-liturgical carol singing before Christmas; just can't see a problem with it. Any opportunity to reinforce the sacred message of Christmas is one we should grasp with both hands. Wait until after Christmas Day to do it and we'd be singing to ourselves.

[Southern Comfort]

I don't share the aversion to non-liturgical carol singing before Christmas; just can't see a problem with it.

This is the problem, IMO:

in the same way that you don't sing Easter Hymns during Lent or Holy Week, you shouldn't be singing Christmas carols during Advent

If that's not a problem, I'll look forward to you doing "Jesus Christ is risen today" at your Chrism Mass next year.

[mcb]

Is your Chrism Mass non-liturgical, then?