Christmas church services
 

A couple of things on my mind. First, any of you who attended church yesterday: would you say your services had a strong Christmas theme? Any kind of organized program?

Second, do you attend any church service on Christmas Eve/Christmas?

My answers here are first, that my services at my ward yesterday only vaguely referenced Christmas. Sacrament meeting was some lame speakers, one who talked for half her talk about how she was sick and didn't want to be talking, then talked a bit about Mary. The second speaker talked about the atonement and the balancing of the laws of justice and mercy. The choir sang twice. The gospel doctrine class, I hear, was about Ether. In primary, they talked about Joseph Smith and that story about how he wouldn't take alcohol when he had leg surgery. (In my class, we did a Christmas craft). I heard that ym/yw had a joint lesson wherein they discussed the theme for the new year.

Second, there is an Episcopal church a block from my house, and I was thinking about attending their Christmas Eve services, which I have never done before. They often have morning services (30 minutes or less), and sometimes I go to those. I always enjoy it when I do. I guess I feel a lack somehow at Christmas time, like I wish my Christmas traditions were built a little more around worship and a little less around food and family fun (although I enjoy those things too).

Any thoughts on Christmas religious observance in the LDS church?

We had a Christmas choir program in Sacrament Meeting yesterday, so I think that counts. Gospel Doctrine and Priesthood/RS meetings were on whatever is in the curriculum. Do you think the church should modify it's curriculum so that the last or next-to-last Sunday auxiliary lessons center on the birth of Christ?

I try to attend a Christmas service of some kind at another church each year, usually on Christmas Eve. It's always a lot of fun.

Christmas themed choir program in sac meeting. Ether in GD class. I ran a Christmas Trivia game in Deacons Quorum. We took carrot cake to our HT families. Other ward members brought stuff to us. FHE on Christmas and service to others, then we watched It's a Wonderful Life.

Doing laundry this morning. I wish there was less laundry during the holidays.

I have attended Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve before, but with kids it gets busy and difficult. We always have a nice Italian-themed dinner on Christmas Eve (all fish) and then a scripture-based program with the family.

I don't understand why The Church doesn't insert special themed lessons on major religious holidays (Easter, Christmas, St. Patricks day, Halloween).

Personally, I would love to see a Halloween choir performance in Sacrament Meeting.

My ward had a program that consisted of 5 choir numbers, 2 congregational hymns, one instrumenbtal duet, one women's ensemble and one Young women's ensemble. All oif these were focused on Christmas. Between each of the numbers three narrators read various scriptures (from all of the standard works) that discussed the advent. The meeting ended with a simple but as it turned out rather moving testimony by a new mother of the divinty of the savior's mission from her perspective as a young mother.

I thought it was a great meeting. Every year we have a music centered sacrament the Sunday before Christmas.

I put together the Christmas program again this year. 7 musical numbers (6 of these choral), a few congregational hymns, 6 readers of poetry, and 7 readers of scriptures. Our choir director has worked for the Episcopalian church before, I think. We had a boy soprano sing a solo on the first verse of Once in Royal David's City (evidently inspired by the Episcopal service) and the choir sang a Christmas hymn from the Episcopalian hymn book.

One thing puzzled me a little. I put a fair amount of work making a cohesive program, including hunting down some appropriate, non-cheesy poetry to read in between the music. I assigned one of the longer poems to a man in our ward to read, and imagine my surprise when he read a completely different poem I had never heard of before. Did he feel the need to censor me?

Sounds nice, more like what I would have liked to hear, although I don't necessarily need it to be music-centered. I guess some kind of cohesive Christmas message would have been nice. I don't know why that person would have changed the poem without talking to you about it. It wasn't Mike, was it?

That is a surprise and quite rude.

Our ward program was choir based and quite good. We have several professional singers in our ward, so some of the music can be quite amazing. As an aside, Sister Gladys Knight is in our stake and has performed for our ward from time to time. We have others who perform in Nashville or in Vegas. And I suppose that is not the norm but it makes for some great music.