Christmas report

Hi everyone, I'm coming up for air.  I've spent the last week doing full-time Christmas preparation: getting the Christmas shopping done, the Christmas cards out the door, baking, cooking - and worship.

Worship-wise, this year has been particularly intense, even by the standards of this worship-full season.  Our parish had ... hold on a moment while I count them up ... eight Christmas masses, half of which actually landed on Christmas Day (the others were on Christmas Eve - more about that below).

For liturgy, it's been a bit of a perfect storm for me this year.  A few years ago, our parish had four deacons, but now we're down to two - one passed away, and another moved away.  We've been trying to recruit more deacon candidates among our parishioners, but it's proved to be surprisingly difficult to find men in the right age bracket and life situation who would consider discerning whether God might be calling them.  Perhaps I'll write more about that sometime.  Even if we're able to round up candidates, it's a minimum of four years before ordination, so for now, it's just Deacon Joe and me, splitting the diaconal duties.

Of course, a Christmas mass, or any mass, can happen without a deacon.  But cf the perfect storm.  Our parish has one priest.  At this time last year, we had two priests; and not that many years ago, we had two active guys, supplemented by two actively-retired guys who lived in the parish rectory, so we had four priests to share the mass assignments.  But through the inexorable forces of priestly attrition - death, disability, new assignments, etc. - now we're down to one.  That guy, our pastor, doesn't quail from hard work and serving his people, but asking him to do eight masses over two days is just too much - even if he could bilocate, as on a couple of occasions we had two masses going on more or less simultaneously, one in church and the other in the parish center.  So we had to line up some visiting priests to fill out the schedule.  And our rule is: whenever a visiting priest is assigned, a deacon is assigned to serve with him.  So Joe and I had some visitor slots to cover.

Did I mention the perfect storm?  In addition to the above, our music director is on medical leave.  This would not be the time of year a pastor would choose to have the music director on medical leave (not that it was our director's choice; it was just unfortunate circumstances).  Because there is no such thing as a "visitor music director" that is analogous to a visitor priest, waiting to jump in at a moment's notice (at least not anyone we'd want within a country mile of our music ministry), we had to make do and muddle through with whoever in the parish can approximate a music director for a short period of time.  I'm one of those people. So I directed the choir for midnight mass, and also played for one of the other masses.

All told, I was a deacon of the mass or (what is much harder work) leading music at five masses over the space of about 20 hours.  And there were hours upon hours of preparation for all of the above, especially for the music stuff.  And none of this stuff is my day job; this is all on top of the things that I do during the day to pay for a mortgage, cars, college tuition and other pesky financial commitments.

Anyway, it was a lot.

Our two highest-attended masses this year were the 3 pm Christmas Eve (in church) and the 3:15 pm Christmas Eve (in the parish center).  People around here want to do their Christmas worshiping on Christmas Eve rather than Christmas Day.  In the 1990s, when we first moved to this community, the parish would do a Christmas mass as early as 1 pm on Christmas Eve - and it was very popular with parishioners.  But the archdiocese put the kibosh on Christmas masses that early.  I understand the liturgical-integrity point of view, but personally, I would say: If people want to go to church at that time, let's provide them with church at that time.  From what I can tell, there are two groups who prefer mass on Christmas Eve afternoon: families with young children; and folks who observe ethnic traditions that involve Christmas Eve evening family gatherings and big dinners.

For the three masses at which I was a deacon, I tried to arrive an hour early, stand by the entrance door and greet people on the way in.  It was great.  I must have said Merry Christmas, individually, to a couple of thousand people, and I shook countless hands.  Some of those people were regulars, and some were complete strangers.

As for the rest of the Christmas silliness: I managed to get the Christmas cards out before Christmas actually rolled around, something that doesn't happen every year (the Christmas cards part, I mean; Christmas itself comes every year, Gaudete!).  I send out somewhere in the neighborhood of 80-90 cards.  I include a family letter which provides an annual update on the doings of the members of the family.  We used to send out a family picture, but some members of the family are now bridling at having their picture taken and sent out to people they don't know.  So the letter is text-only. 

We also get Christmas cards every year, although only about half as many as we send out.  I recognize that, in this Era of Facebook, Christmas cards may be passe.  But they are more private than Facebook (I think; I don't trust Facebook when it comes to privacy).  We seem to get a few fewer cards each year.  I'd like to think that people are glad to hear from us, and that they actually read the family Christmas letter.  But I can't say for certain that is the case.  Just speaking for myself, I'm grateful for any cards that come in, and I read all their family letters and look at all their pictures.  I play a game: look at the family picture first, and see if I can guess who sent us the card.  I can figure it out about a quarter of the time. 

The shopping this year was frustrating.  If I'm not mistaken, the "shopping season" was a few days shorter this year than the average, and I struggled to get it done.  I didn't finish until Dec 23rd this year.  I told myself at the beginning of the season that I'd do more online shopping, but I didn't follow through - didn't order more than 1-2 items online.  If I know precisely what I'm going to buy  - what part number, from which vendor - I have no qualms about ordering it online.  But if I have to comparison shop, I'd rather hit a mall or an outlet mall or some such, tramp around and finger the merchandise.  But in the end, it was done, and I had a wrapping marathon on Christmas Eve.

Christmas Day itself, to be candid, is always a bit of an anti-climax for me.  After church is behind us and the gifts are opened, the day sort of lacks direction and structure.  I get bored pretty easily.  We cook a big Christmas dinner every year - another source of stress for me.  It's also kind of melancholy for me in that I don't have any extended family in the Chicago area, so nobody comes over, and we have nobody to visit.  My brothers and sisters are scattered all over the US, and I'm sort of tied down to the parish during Christmastime, so travel isn't an option for me.  It would be nice if any of my siblings came to visit me, but none of them ever have.   Nearly all of them are more than driving distance away, and when we were younger, flying was too expensive for them.  So we've all sort of developed our own individual family traditions.  It's too bad.

Somewhere in the midst of all this, I try to celebrate the Incarnation.  It's easy to lose the thread in the midst of all the seasonal bustle.