I wasn't in long enough to experience this, but wondering how Christmas on a Sunday is handled...? My husband says they still do a 3 hr block...

Business as usual.

Someone cleans the building on Christmas Eve.

Family, gifts, Santa, even Jesus is overruled by the Mormon schedule. Better not be late. Better be dressed right.

Wonder how my friends are going to handle it. Their married children are all on different schedules, and the child who is still home goes to the singles ward, at a different time. They have their family Sunday dinner on Saturday. Maybe they will have their family Christmas on Saturday, too.

That's how my TBM parents celebrated Easter--the family get-together and the Easter feast, and the egg hunt were all on Saturday. Easter Sunday was all about wearing a new dress to church, and seeing everyone else's new clothes. Not really about Christ at all.

Having Christmas on Sunday will be a problem, because the grandchildren all come over for brunch, and to open the family gifts here, around noon. 12-3 is church-time for the Mormon family members. Their Mormon in-laws have a claim on every Sunday night. Once again, we're all going to have to bend over backwards to accommodate the Mormons. They think they are more important than anyone else. Sundays I volunteer at a senior care center, and they count on me to help them e-mail, Skype and Face-time their loved ones who are far away. Christmas Day will be a very busy day.

I don't know of anyone who can spare 3 whole hours out of their Christmas Day, do you? Some need a nap, some have to drive a distance to be with their family. How will they do it?

I hear you on accommodating Mormon inlaws.... My Mormon inlaws always tell us they are 'open' to whatever. BUT, when they have church from 11-2, it's not very open and it automatically means we have to have the early part of a holiday with my family. Since my mom is a nurse who works night shift, that doesn't always work so well. It gets stressful.

Everyone else can go to services when they choose, not when "their" group has a specific time slot.

Exactly. In every other church, people can decide for themselves which service to attend, and often that means the late night or midnight service on Christmas Eve. The only reason a Mormon building will be opened this year on Christmas Eve is for the members who were sucked into cleaning and weren't able to get out of it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/25/2016 05:07PM by adoylelb.

I was also wondering what they do, as I wasn't in long enough to experience a Mormon Sunday Christmas. I guess it's just business as usual, where if they mention anything at all, it's Joseph Smith's birthday on the 23rd. The thing I did notice is that they don't really decorate the chapel in December, and the only trees are in the foyer and gym for the ward potluck.

even when Christmas day falls on Sunday they don't bother much with church at Christmas - a special service about one hour long usually. In my experience,

Wouldn't that depend on if the ward has a uber TBM bishop or not!???

Business as usual was my experience. 3 effing boring hours...

-Dennis

My ward just had SM the last time Christmas was on Sunday. The talks were on Joseph Smith since his birthday was December 23rd. I was still a TBM at the time, but I left that day thinking "WTF!"

I'll split after the SM; she likely will, too. That's unless we're out of town. We like to go to the beach in December.

Assuming we're here we will probably be working on a feast. On Sundays we put the sheet of plywood on the dining table and drag in five or six neighbors, relatives or Mormons to chow down with us. Christmas should be no different.

Christmas on Sunday was absolutely infuriating! 3 hours of the same BS as every other Sunday of the year. Totally ruined Christmas for me as kid when that happened. My birthday is the day after Christmas, so if that fell on a Sunday, I was sure as hell going to 3 hours of nonsense on my Birthday as well.

Just don't go. Or just go to sacrament meeting and split. I'm sure you won't be the only ones doing it.

Please take note of the "fact" that Jesus was not born on December 25, but on April 6. What takes place on December 25 is strictly a 'pagan' (from a mormon POV) celebration.

I will not be surprised if the church starts pushing a 'don't celebrate X-mess' agenda, since cutting out buying presents leaves more time and money to give to the church.

This pre-occupation with Sunday Don't Doos in my opinion is INSANE INSANE INSANE INSANE

Your remark reminds me of mormon Sunday do do's. do do heads...

I stopped attending about 9 years ago and it was never 3 hours. Only a 1 hour sacrament meeting and they were staggered close together so all 3 wards could leave early.

It was one of the few times I liked being Mormon. Midnight Mass? That would suck!

Midnight Mass is once a year, and not required. There are numerous services available to attend, both Christmas Eve and Christmas morning.

Also, Midnight Mass is one of the most beautiful things you will ever see. The church, lit only in candles, while the service begins with "O Come All Ye Faithful" and ends in "Joy to the World".

People will stand in line for hours, or days to go see a movie at a midnight showing. Why not on Christmas Eve?

The only Christmas on a Sunday I remember was in a small branch and we had only a sacrament meeting. It was held at 10AM and didn't bother me much as the kids were up at 6am to open their gifts and I had time to get feed them, get them dressed into good clothes. They were extra quiet with their new books to look at etc. I left them in their good clothes for Christmas dinner (which only needed an hour to cook the vegies as I had put the turkey in oven on low before we went to church) It was fine, FAR from being the worst problem I had in tscc. If we had been visiting relatives, as we often did for Christmas, I probably would not have bothered with Church, but stayed to help the person cooking the dinner.

I never went to church on Christmas when it landed on Sunday. The little town we lived in had a Christmas tree lighting ceremony at the park, and everyone lit luminaries in front of their house on Christmas Eve. Groups of people would walk through the neighborhoods singing Christmas Carols.That's a very sweet Christmas memory for me and my kids.

We didn't feel a need to drive 30 miles the next day to be bored out of our minds in a meeting where Christmas was barely acknowledged.

When we were kids, we were give a choice between going to a family mass on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. It lasted about an hour. We always chose Christmas Eve and went around 7pm. The kids acted out the story of Christmas at that one.

Members either suck it up and pretend everything's hunkey dorey, or they make excuses and bend things for their own particular needs. If you are unlucky enough to get roped into speaking, need to officiate, or need to perform the music or other performance roles (not always the worst things to do on a Christmas Sunday) then you might be given some leeway to prioritize your Christmas duties and obligations. If not, you may be relegated to situations that may cause you to have to defend to your children and other family members the reasons you are deciding to modify the set church block schedule to fit your own personal needs. The more enlightened wards are sensible and lenient and modify the "recommended" program to fit the needs of the ward, especially for those members who have family member traveling long distances and who are staying overnight.

It depends on the BP. Some years it was a very short service with mostly singing the carols in the hymnbook~ kind bishop.

Other times it was utter chaos because there were so many members missing so classes had to be combined. I've been out for 15 years so chaos might be the new normal for morg services.

Will be business as usual with Sacrament talks about Joseph Smiths Dec 23rd birthday.

I always dread Christmas on Sunday. This will be my first Christmas not being active in the church-so no worries for me! Our wards have always only had SM for it. Usually a program of reading the story from the bible and book of mormon of Christ's birth with lots of singing in between. But, how annoying to have to get dressed up for church on Christmas day!

one of our neighbors didn't allow the children to open presents until after church. she told them to just think about Jesus.

I think New year's Eve is worse on a Sunday because you can't celebrate or party on the sabbath!

June 20, 2016, the First Presidency issued a letter saying that on Christmas it should just be a sacrament meeting. The wording appears to be identical to the 2011 letter about the same thing.

So, you are saying sacrament meeting ONLY?

Conflict of interest time....worship the LARD or JS...tough call for a TBM

RB

It might also depend on where you live. When we lived outside of Utah, the SM on the Sunday before Christmas was generally a Christmas themed program. Very often, there would be music and readings from the NT. Sometimes it involved adults doing the program, other times it was the primary kids. It was not uncommon for the Bishop to cancel all meetings except SM so people could spend more time with their families.

When we moved to Utah several years ago, we were surprised at the number of non-Christmas themes at SM:

One year, a seminary teacher spoke about the importance of seminary. Not a word about the upcoming holiday.

Two different years, couples reported on their mission experiences.

The craziest was in 2011 when Christmas fell on a Sunday. Instead of saying anything at all about Christ or Christmas, the Bishop's wife gave a talk about Joseph Smith and there even seemed to be a little attitude in her tone.

It's just my guess, but I'm thinking that the anti-Christmas attitude is another attempt to distance themselves from other Christian denominations which traditionally celebrate December 25th as the birthday of Jesus. When JS announced that Jesus was really born on April 6th, the TBM's want to make sure that everyone around knows they aren't playing along with those ignorant and unknowing heretics.

It's similar to the way I've seen Utah Mormons respond to the cross. Even though worldwide the cross is seen as a generic symbol of Christianity, in TBMlandia Utah, wearing a cross is akin to a satanic symbol. Utah is the weirdest place in the U.S.

If you live in Utah, don't be surprised if it's just business as usual in your Ward.

Church at Christmas always meant decorations in the chapel when I was a kid too.

RB

I decorate for the holiday season, but that's it. No Jesus or church for me.

New Year's Eve will be a similar problem with parties etc..It's on a Saturday night! Then everyone's ward switches times again! Oh goody for my ward its the 9am time!