{"id":44653,"date":"2018-12-23T14:10:12","date_gmt":"2018-12-23T20:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/?p=44653"},"modified":"2018-12-25T21:45:47","modified_gmt":"2018-12-26T03:45:47","slug":"poll-results-church-christmas-parties-during-advent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2018\/12\/23\/poll-results-church-christmas-parties-during-advent\/","title":{"rendered":"Poll Results: Church Christmas Parties during Advent?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

240 responded to our poll on whether parishes and church organizations should have Christmas parties during Advent. A resounding 64% say NO, while 36% say YES.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The comments are interesting. There is a side skirmish about whether or not Advent is penitential. A few folks report that they used to be purist on this question but have changed their view. Here are all the comments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * * * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am under the belief that less is more. Most people have Christmas parties in Advent or Christmastide outside of Church and you don\u2019t need to add another item to people\u2019s plate this time of year. I think parish activities and parties are important. Easter, parish feast day and other days should be celebrated. Though if a parish were to have a party, I think either Epiphany Sunday or the day before would be ideal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I cannot begin to\ncount all of the Christmas pageants, Christmas concerts, Christmas parties, and\noutdoor Christmas decorations all throughout Advent at area Catholic parishes.\n\u201cCelebrate Christmas at the Cathedral with the St. Louis Cathedral Concert\nSeries\u201d on December 2! I am bothered by the disconnect between our Sunday\nworship (where anything Christmas remains quaintly taboo during Advent) and\nwhat we are celebrating every other hour of the week. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I see three ways\nforward. 1) Bishops, or conferences of bishops, could lead an Advent reform\nmovement to stamp out premature celebrations of Christmas. Given the inevitable\nbacklash from the faithful (and the media), this is highly unlikely. 2) Begin\nfour Sundays of Advent on the first Sunday of November followed by a seven-week\ncelebration of Christmas. 3) Abolish Advent altogether. This sounds drastic,\nbut for all practical purposes is what we are gradually doing already.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strictly speaking,\nno; churches would do well to preserve the penetential nature of the this\n\u201cSeason of Waiting,\u201d at the very least in a liturgical sense. That said,\nseveral parishes I\u2019ve been aquatinted with put on rather \u201cChristmasy\u201d St.\nNicholas festivals around his feast day. On the plus side, it\u2019s a nice way to\nreinforce the saintly origins of modern cultural depictions of St. Nick, Santa\nClaus, Father Christmas, etc. On the other hand, these Christmas-lite\nfestivities cannot escape the appearance of acquiescence to a secular culture\nthat invariably treats the month of December as The Christmas Season,\nliturgical patrimony not withstanding. So long as clear distinctions are made\nand these parties are kept away from the church, I can\u2019t say I\u2019m too bothered\nby them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cthe\npenetential nature of the this \u201cSeason of Waiting,\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It really is time\nthat we ended this common misconception. Advent is not<\/strong> a\npenitential season. It may have no Gloria, but it still has an Alleluia. We\nwait \u201cin joyful<\/em> hope\u201d. Advent is a season of waiting, of eager\nanticipation, in the same way that a pregnant woman eagerly anticipates the\nbirth of her child. Yes, over the centuries, it has become in the minds of many\na penitential preparation for Christmas, analogous to the Lenten penitential\nseason preparing for Easter, but this has always been a misunderstanding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s good to\nremember that up until the 11th century (in some places), the liturgical colour\nfor Advent was white, not violet. \u00b6 Having said all that, I believe that\nbecause society celebrates Christmas during the month or more before it,\ninstead of during the month following it as we should, we are called to be\nprophets. We can wait in joy without pre-empting the additional joyfulness of\nChristmastide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It really is time\nthat we ended this common misconception that the association of penance with\nAdvent \u201chas always been a misunderstanding.\u201d Whatever the season\u2019s origins and\neventual reconfiguration, the Tridentine liturgical era provided ample grounds\nto ascribe a penitential character. Apart from your mention of the Gloria and\nliturgical color one might list: folded chasubles (replacing the dalmatic,\nvestment of joy), suppression of musical instruments, suppression of the weekday\nAlleluia, preces feriales, prohibition of the solemn nuptial blessing. Was\nAdvent Lent? No, clearly not, as it lacked fasting, retained more Alleluias,\nand ranked its ferias (at least post-Pius X) lower than those of Lent. But was\nAdvent markedly similar to Lent? Yes. No mistake in calling *that* Advent\npenitential. \u00b6\nSince the postconciliar reforms those penitential markers have all but\ndisappeared, so it would be wrong to insist that the season has fully retained\nits character. But I find it equally beyond the sources to insist on\n*excluding* a penitential valence. After all, musical instruments and floral\ndecoration \u201cshould be marked by a moderation suited to the character of this\ntime of year, without expressing in anticipation the full joy of the Nativity\nof the Lord.\u201d One might press that to mean merely that its joy is only slightly\nless than Christmas. But one wonders why a season of such joy should call for\nmoderation not required in Ordinary Time. Perhaps because the former\npenitential cast has not been wholly broken: \u201cthrow off the works of darkness;\u201d\n\u201cRepent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!\u201d Indeed, the current Homiletic\nDirectory declares that Isaiah\u2019s prayer (inter alia: \u201cBehold, you are angry,\nand we are sinful\u201d) \u201cinstructs the Church in penitential attitudes that are\nproper to this season\u201d (83). Would it not be best to accept that the modern\nseason blends \u201cpenitential attitudes\u201d and \u201cexpectant delight\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am sure we will\ncontinue to disagree about this. The fact that the Tridentine period fell\nheadlong into and even accentuated the misconception I mentioned does not mean\nthat the misconception thereby ceased to exist or was legitimized, any more\nthan the lack of a responsorial psalm was legitimized by a fifteen hundred-year\nabsence from the Roman Rite, or that the centuries of liturgical accretions\nthat the Council Fathers desired to remove somehow meant that all those\naccretions were in fact OK. \u00b6 It is the word \u201cpenitential\u201d that bothers\nme. \u201cSober\u201d yes, \u201cpenitential\u201d, no. Apart from anything else, the threefold\nnature of the season as presented in the lectionary we currently use is far\nfrom easy to equate with a penitential thrust. It\u2019s all about looking\nforward<\/strong>: to Christ\u2019s second coming, to the coming of the Redeemer (Messiah)\nwho will set his people free, to the celebration of Christ\u2019s coming into the\nworld at Christmas. And we look forward in joy, expectantly, not in sorrow,\nbeating our breasts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From every\nhistorical source I have read, it always describes Advent as originating with a\nfast period preceding Christmas that gradually grew in length. It may even have\nhad a baptismal character, and the Christian east of course still maintains the\nfasting requirements to this day. \u00b6 In the west, the fasting requirements were\nnever as ubiquitous and they were dropped early into the second millennium if\nnot earlier and were a dim memory by the council of Trent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So Advent\u2019s\ndevelopment is the opposite of what you describe. It started out in a\npenitential manner and then slowly lost this character with the passage of\ntime. \u00b6 The Tridentine missal managed to keep something of the season\u2019s\norigin spirit. And the current missal\u2019s omission of the Gloria is one of the\nlast vestiges of the seasons penitential character. \u00b6 Whether the\nseason of Advent should have a penitential character today is of course a\nrelated but separate question from origins of the season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m happy to let\nthe disagreement about Advent\u2019s current character lie. Lent is hardly a\npenitential season anymore compared to the patristic era, and compared to Lent\nany penitential component of Advent sobriety is barely perceptible. I felt it\nworth chiming in, however, to confront your essentialism: Advent is X and only\nX, a Platonic form identified in a certain era and unaffected by whatever the\nChurch may have prescribed for it in other times. The 11th century may provide\nevidence of what Advent *was* but it doesn\u2019t dictate what the season *is,* and\nthe season\u2019s past, current, or future primary foci don\u2019t deligitimize any\nsecondary foci the Church may propose (as in the Homiletic Directory).  \u00b6 In this vein\nI\u2019m afraid that your reply has only doubled down on what worried me most. I\nwould be slow to say of any liturgical observance that \u201cit\u2019s all about X.\u201d\nWe\u2019re dealing in mystery, and no matter how bite-size we try to make it the\ninterconnected truths can\u2019t be neatly separated. Furthermore, given that, in\nyour view, long centuries of usage can\u2019t legitimize developments, you\u2019re\nsetting yourself up for some uncomfortable conclusions. Unless you really have\nstaked out a principled rejection of the three year Lectionary or are starting\na campaign to reintroduce the disciplina arcani.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We always do ours\non the Friday before Epiphany because in my experience everybody\u2019s tired of\nChristmas by December 21st. We have a younger staff who have been to more\nrecitals, parades, parades than they\u2019d ever want and frankly just want to pick\nthe kids up and get moving on the Friday before Christmas. I find doing the\nepiphany party far more Catholic and far more welcomed by them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have a simple\nrule: there should be more parish feasting during the Christmas season than the\nAdvent one. Immaculate Conception, St. Nicholas, St. Lucy, Guadalupe; all of\nthese have a tradition of celebration behind them, and I have no desire to\nstamp these out. But, we should build up a proper celebration of Christmastide.\nSomeone already suggested Epiphany Eve. New Year\u2019s Eve or Day could also be a\ngreat occasion for a parish social.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps another\nway to frame it to move it way from a battle of insiders\u2019 shibboleths may be\nthat the kind of expectation that Advent is meant to evoke and elicit from us\nis one that involves metanoia, a re-orientation towards the Lord, which\nnecessarily includes repentance for those of us who are sinners (well, at least\nme).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the things\nI\u2019ve grown to appreciate about Advent as I\u2019ve aged over the years and gone\nthrough more cycles of loss is that the use of violet vestments in funerals\nalso benefits from this association.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thanks. I am ever\nreminded of the piercing insight from the orthogonal-to-expectations vision of\nthe re-orientation of the saved at the end of time in the conclusion of\nFlannery O\u2019Connor\u2019s short story, \u201cRevelation\u201d that seems very much in the\nspirit of Advent reflection: \u201d . . . bringing up the end of the procession was\na tribe of people whom [Mrs. Turpin] recognized at once as those who , like\nherself and Claud, had always had a little of everything and the given wit to\nuse it right. She leaned forward to observe them closer. They were marching\nbehind the others with great dignity, accountable as they had always been for\ngood order and common sense and respectable behavior. They alone were on key.\nYet she could see by their shocked and altered faces even their virtues were\nbeing burned away.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I agree with all\nof the comments, but a lot of this seems very \u201cbah humbug!\u201d And I used to be\nfirmly in the \u201cno Christmas parties\u201d camp. But now I think of it as an \u201call of\nthe above\u201d approach. \u00b6 My parish is in a low income housing\nfacility and also has a lot of services for homeless men and women. Next week\nwe\u2019re having a Christmas party (yes, a Christmas party!) for the homeless to\nlet them decorate a large Christmas Tree in the lobby, and even help us get a\nhead start on the ones we\u2019ll be setting upside the church. If you\u2019re homeless,\nyou don\u2019t get too many Christmas party invitations, and you certainly don\u2019t\nhave a tree. We\u2019ll have cookies, we\u2019ll have carols. You can call it an \u201cAdvent\nParty\u201d if you\u2019d like, but it\u2019s clearly a Christmas Party. We\u2019re not going to\ntell the homeless \u2014 or the affluent \u2014 that you need to wait until 4 pm on\nDecember 24th to celebrate the Incarnation. \u00b6\nMeanwhile, the parish staff\nand the liturgy committee can have their Christmas party after Christmas. The\nparish gives away gifts to all parishioners on Epiphany. \u00b6 All of the\nabove! \u00b6 As a matter of fact, after I finish this comment, I need to\ndash out and buy a few things for the parish staff Christmas party tonight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve come around\nto the idea (and maybe I\u2019m the only one who harbors it) that our culture\ninstinctively \u201cgets\u201d Advent insofar as the Advent season is a time of\npreparation. And so our culture spends an inordinate amount of time, energy and\nmoney during the Advent season, preparing for Christmas. We buy gifts, we bake\nand cook, we send out greeting cards, we make charitable donations, we decorate\nthe house, we put lights on the outside of the house and shrubbery. On our\nelectronic devices, we listen to music that is categorized as Christmas music,\neven though its themes seem to be Santa and being away from home during\nholidays and dating, more so than the coming of the Christ child. We even get\nAdvent calendars for our kids that, as far as I can tell, are devoid of any\nexplicitly spiritual Advent content but which help the kids count down the days\nuntil Christmas. \u00b6 And yes, we have social get-togethers. We call them Christmas\nparties. Are they really Christmas parties in any spiritually meaningful sense?\nAs we transport ourselves to these events, we wear sweaters and hats that are\nsaid to be Christmas colors, but which don\u2019t correspond to the appointed\nliturgical colors for the Christmas season. Once we\u2019re at the event, we may\nwell eat too much, and some may even drink too much, but I\u2019m not sure any of\nthat amounts to feasting. If we belong to that rather small and strange yet fun\nsubset of humanity known as liturgical musicians, we sing Christmas songs, some\nof which are true Christmas songs. \u00b6 On the whole, I think it\u2019s fair to say that\nthe culture has taken proper Advent and proper Christmas, and blurred it into\nsomething called \u201cChristmastime\u201d. But it seems to me that the culture hasn\u2019t\nlost the sense of preparation that belongs to Advent. And there are\nopportunities for spiritual reflection there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our parish has a\nwonderful \u201cLittle Christmas Dinner Dance\u201d on Epiphany night. This will be our 21st\nand it\u2019s always packed. I have no illusions, though, about the practice of rank\nand file parishioners who take no exception to Advent liturgical practice while\nbeginning household, workplace, and neighborhood Secular Christmas around\nHalloween. I do believe that church practice at least invites folks to place\nsome restraint on the latter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the southern\nhemisphere, after Christmas many parishes go into holiday mode until at least\nmid January: Epiphany happens while many people are off work and away from\nhome. The consequence is that if a seasonal gathering is to be held, it needs\nto happen before The Big Day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I used to be a\n\u201cpurist\u201d with regard to Advent, and got hot under the collar at any\nmanifestation of Christmas before 24th December. In recent years, however, we\nhave held a service of Nine Lessons and Carols in the week before Christmas,\nalong the lines of the Kings College service, and concluding with Solemn\nBenediction. It has proved to be very popular, and is, I think, an appropriate\nway of preparing hearts and minds for the coming feast. \u00b6 But one can go\ntoo far with this. When I lived in London, the local C of E parish used to hold\ntheir service of Nine Lessons and Carols before the end of November. It was\nrather strange coming back from it, and then saying Vespers for the First\nSunday of Advent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I used to hold out\nas much as I could throughout Advent, but I have been struck over the last\ncouple of years by the Preface of Advent II: \u201cIt is by his gift that already we\nrejoice\/at the mystery of his Nativity,\u2026\u201d \u00b6 So these days I try to keep things as\nsubdued as possible up to 17th December and then to allow Christmas things to\nbegin to creep in. \u00b6 Our parish helpers party will be on 2nd February, but this is\nas much because civic diaries are congested in the run up to Christmas as it is\na sense that such a party ought not to be held in Advent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our Staff\nParty\/gift exchange\/booze fest is deliberately done as close to Epiphany as\npossible. There\u2019s still plenty of Christmas to be had, and practically none of\nthe stress!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Technically of\ncourse no. But esp. down here in oz when we enter summer holidays and end of\nthe school year as well as Christmas it is difficult to do anything else\nwithout seeming a little hard hearted. \u00b6 My former parish had their Christmas\nconcert on November 30 and Advent Parish Mission on Saturday December 1st from\n9:00AM to 2:00PM.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Epiphany parties,\nAdvent reflection days or evenings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Best practices\nwould advocate for a big NO. Advent is a whole season unto itself and should be\ntreated as such. Christmas has its time with Epiphany as a last hurrah. But you\u2019ve\ngot to make some leaway for \u201cspecial circumstances\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A resounding 64% say NO, while 36% say YES.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":44654,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[3116,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-new-ws","category-liturgical-spirituality"],"yoast_head":"\nPoll Results: Church Christmas Parties during Advent? - Home<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2018\/12\/23\/poll-results-church-christmas-parties-during-advent\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Poll Results: Church Christmas Parties during Advent? 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