# Is your Church having a shorter service this Sunday, Christmas? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 24, 2011, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-church-having-a-shorter-service-this-sunday-christmas/607282 "2011-12-24T15:09:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2011, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-church-having-a-shorter-service-this-sunday-christmas/607282/41 "2011-12-26T00:06:18Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Yes, but, as always, it will be a very quick service, where we take communion, read the nativity story, and leave. Any big stuff is done before the day so that it doesn’t interrupt people’s plans. > > And it’s not really fair to imply that we celebrate less. This is what would happen even if Christmas were some other day of the week. So there’s only less church one out of seven times. Wait, wasn’t the title of this thread different before, asking whether you were having service at all? If not, sorry for the non sequitor. And if you’re wondering why I’m here, it’s because we’re doing Christmas on the 26th this year, so my mom can be with her ailing father on the actual day. We all have Monday off, anyways. ---
**Author:** ![Purple\_Scottie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a698b9/32.png) [@Purple\_Scottie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Purple_Scottie)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2011, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-church-having-a-shorter-service-this-sunday-christmas/607282/42 "2011-12-28T03:25:14Z")
The church I attend (Episcopalian) had a 4:30 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. services on Christmas Eve. While the earlier one was not specifically labeled as for children, I’m assuming more of the families with young kids attended that one. In previous parishes I’ve attended, the church may label the earlier service as “incense free”. Instead of having the two regular services with Sunday School in between on Sunday they had one service and will resume Sunday School the first Sunday after New Years. I attended my parent’s church on Christmas Eve and Christmas. It is also Episcopal but smaller parish so they had one Christmas Eve service and then the one usual service on Sunday but no Sunday school. ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Onimous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ea5d25/32.png) [@Ann\_Onimous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Onimous)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2011, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-church-having-a-shorter-service-this-sunday-christmas/607282/43 "2011-12-28T03:36:45Z")
> [@JThunder](#): > > Yeah, a good number of churches have gone that route. With all due respect to these congregation though, I think that churches need to set a good example. Most people will have plenty of time to spend with their families, after all. Surely they can spend at least an hour or so of that time with their families in church – especially with all this talk about putting Christ back in Christmas. > [@Nava](#): > > This one caused me a double and triple take… until I realized why it was so difficult for me to understand. Normally, in Spain members of a family who will be going to church and spending the day together go to church together. Understood on both counts. There are families here where the entire family goes to church: and some where they even go to the same church. In my family, we are the only four that attend church. We can get up in the morning, have family time, do the gift exchange, and then our part of the family can go to church for service. And our service was normal length: they just cancelled our equivalent of Sunday School. ---
**Author:** ![installLSC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/54ee81/32.png) [@installLSC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/installLSC)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2011, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-church-having-a-shorter-service-this-sunday-christmas/607282/44 "2011-12-29T05:36:28Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > I’m an atheist, but I find the idea of churches cancelling or shortening services because of Christmas both bizarre and amusing. I’m Catholic and I think it’s bizarre. The Catholic Mass is very rigidly structured; you simply can’t take out big chunks of the service to make it shorter. My hometown parish has the same number of Christmas/Christmas Eve services it has every weekend (one English/one Spanish on each day), with the exception of a Spanish Midnight Mass. The attendence for the services was about what it usually is: quarter full or less for English services, crowds spilling onto the sidewalk for the Spanish services. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-church-having-a-shorter-service-this-sunday-christmas/607282.md?page=2)