Christmas Services: Cancellations, Adjustments, and Bringing Back an Old Favorite

Weekly reflections on religion and what's going on in the world.

We’ve barely started the school year, but I want to tell you about some of what we’ve got planned for the Christmas season. Such is the nature of church work. 🙂

First, the bad news: we will not be offering a Children’s Tableaux service this year. I know this may be a real disappointment. We are not saying that we’ll never do Children’s Tableaux service again, but our judgement was that it would be best to let it lie fallow for this year. Not offering that service also allows us to rearrange our December schedule and give more time and attention to other offerings that we hope you will enjoy.

Our Advent Choral Vespers will be on Saturday, December 6, the first weekend in December. This is earlier in the month than it has been for the past few years. The musical portion of the service will be the beautiful but rarely heard Christmas Oratorio by Camille Saint-Saëns.

We would ordinarily have our Christmas Marionette services on the first Sunday in December. We would like to still offer these services, but we can only do so if we can find enough volunteers who are good at pulling strings (or are willing to learn). Please contact Rev. Jeff Smith if you are interested (jeffrey.smith@brynathynchurch.org).

We will still be offering the Christmas Tableaux services in the cathedral nave. The change this year is that we are shifting all of the service times earlier. They will now be at 2:30, 4:15, 6:00, and 7:45 pm (instead of 3:30, 5:15, 7:00, and 8:15 pm). We hope that these time changes work better for families with children. It will also be easier for the people involved in putting on these services. We are considering having the first service be shorter and better suited to young children. Stay tuned on that.

Now, for the exciting news: we are bringing back the Christmas Community Sing! This was last done in 2011. Save the date: Friday evening, December 19. Some things will be the same; some things will be different; the core idea of the event will be the same: a chance for the whole community to gather in a relaxed environment, share food, and sing along with Christmas songs. We may incorporate a scene or two from the Children’s Tableaux into the event. Graham Bier will be head wrangler of this event. He is currently gathering information about all the different things that were done at the Community Sing over the years and he would love to hear from you if you’ve got stories, ideas, or excitement to share (graham.bier@brynathynchurch.org).

And, of course, there are other Christmas events that I haven’t mentioned here. We know that it’s a big deal to make changes to what happens at this beautiful, busy, and beloved time of year, and we hope the changes that we are making will serve you well. If you would like to discuss any of these changes, please get in touch (malcolm.smith@brynathynchurch.org).