My family typically spends Christmas Eve with my in-laws. They have some wonderful traditions which make Christmas Eve a celebration of not just the coming of Jesus, but the joys of familial relationships as well. My father-in-law typically makes a delicious ham that my son declares is better even than anything at Thanksgiving. My family usually takes cheesy potatoes and seven layer dip. There is even a delicious sherbet-and-Sprite ice cream concoction to drink. Pajamas are gifted and games are played. It’s a wonderful way to spend the evening.
There is one other tradition that, this year, I found to be striking, though not in the intended way, I’m sure. During the evening’s festivities, after dinner but before any presents are exchanged, my father-in-law plays a nativity video from lds.org. This year he played one called “A Gift to the World”, which portrays the angel appearing to Mary and Joseph, their travel to Bethlehem, Jesus’ birth, the appearance of the angel to the shepherds, and the shepherds’ visit to worship Jesus. I’m sure it is supposed to be touching, but I found it to be banal and sanitary. I think I’ve sat through more emotionally stimulating HR training videos at work. The acting is stilted and lines are delivered in a lifeless, monotone manner. How can a subject so triumphant and celebratory be delivered in such a bland way?
Contrasting that boring video was my experience in my local ward earlier that morning. Our ward combined with another one in the stake to hold a one hour sacrament meeting. The agenda: a performance by the ward choir. No speakers, announcements, or ward business – just administration of the sacrament and singing.
One of the choir numbers involved the entire congregation (it was a packed house) and choir singing “Hark the Herald Angels Sing”. Both the piano and organ were played together with gusto, with everyone singing in full force. It was probably the most touching and amazing rendition of the song I’ve ever heard, made especially powerful by the fact that it was a bunch of amateurs – neighbors, in fact – singing loudly together. After the meeting, many people remained behind, chatting with fellow neighbors and wishing each other a happy Christmas. Every member of my family commented on what a wonderful time it was.
Perhaps that is why I was so struck by the blandness of the institutionally-provided video later that evening. There was something magical about the communal aspect of the morning’s church service. Both performances were centered on the birth of our Savior; however, one was overshadowed by institutional sterility and stiffness, while the other glowed with the communal worship of regular people. It was the Church vs. the church, and I wish we enjoyed less of the former and more of the latter each week.
Wheat & Tares 
Amen!
That my friend is a room full of the spirit. Enough for me to be overwhelmed with joy. I can’t say it happens all the time or every time. But those moments are undeniably emotional.
I agree! I’ll take the latter as well. I’m glad you and your families Christmas turned out great and full of it’s purpose.
My two year old granddaughter to whom I refer as Little Stuff LOVES that video , especially the shepherds, & I love the reaction from the child when she watches it. Our ward also had only one hour – a lovely program with lots of singing by choir, group, and choir/congregation combined. I like both!
Sounds like a wonderful lovely service. Thank you for sharing that. On Christmas Eve we attended our daughter and SIL mega church. So big they had multiple services over three days for people to attend. The “ praise team” ( I struggle with this term ) did a concert of Christmas carols to a rock beat I’ve never heard before. The Pastor of the church was beamed to us on multiple large screens . He did not read the Christmas story . He spoke about the Prodigal Son. My daughter and her husband have never met this man. No one spoke to us. Our daughter was excited for us to be there and we did the humming and nodding you do when you are trying to not say anything that will hurt feelings. But we felt letdown. In contrast , on Christmas Day my SIL minister father was with us for dinner and the prayer he gave before we ate filled our hearts and we all felt Gods presence. It proves to me that wherever we are , in church or not we can feel the love and light of God.
Count your blessings.
Due to various conflicts we found ourselves on Sunday visiting the ____ 187th ward +/- a few right in the heart of Utah county. My wife was furious at the banality and cluelessness and self-righteousness she almost had to be taken out to the foyer by the end it was so horrible. Here is a summary as I saw it:
1. The A-Priesthood did manage to get the sacrament passed to a capacity crowd after blessing the water twice -4 extra trays were needed. That is great, extra attendance at Christmas time. (Perhaps extra preparation should be put into the program.)
2. The ward choir sang several standard Christmas hymns; the sopranos were decent, the men terrible but not loud.This was the high light of the meeting.
3. Individual musical performances were as bad as it gets. An elderly violinist really couldn’t play it any more. It was pitiful. We were all praying for her but the prayers went unanswered. A gorgeous mother of 4 small children apparently once had some real talent on the harp and the room was silent in anticipation when she started. But she was missing about half the notes by the end of a moderately difficult piece. It must have been extremely frustrating for her since she obviously didn’t have/take time to practice enough. A high school cellist played a simple number with mostly open strings that might be doable after a year of playing. She did it well and that was a nice oasis in a sea of musical wincing.
4. Two speakers were on the program, both about 80 years old but still very spry and articulate. Presumably seasoned, wise and experienced in the gospel. They basically had nothing to say. They rambled on about remote, sanitized boring personal experiences and did more than a little name dropping of personal encounters, not with the Lord, but with various mostly dead apostles. The lady admitted that even though she had been active all her life this was only her second time speaking in church, the first being as a primary girl. (But she failed to explain how she dodged that bullet for more than 50-60 years). The man had several perfectly horrible experiences which with only a little difference in perspective could be viewed as great examples of how the church exploits its people and disrupts family relationships. One might conclude the last time he had meaningful spiritual experiences was as a full-time missionary after he flunked out of college.
5. I noticed that digital device usage was at about 10% in the front section with padded seats and plenty of dozing and perhaps skewness to an older age. Digital device usage approached 50% in the next section and I couldn’t see further back. (My dad was a ward clerk for decades, counting in church is in my blood).
6. Other than one vague sentence at the end of the man’s talk, not a word was said about Christ over the pulpit.. Seriously, if you were a Roman soldier looking for evidence of genuine professed Christians to feed to the lions at the colloseum next week, you would have come up empty at that meeting. Yea, the songs describe Christ’s birth; but do people really pay any attention to their message beyond sentimental memories of Christmas past?
7. A nonmember in-law was going to come but decided to sleep in and by the end we were all very grateful for his choice, and jealous for not having the good sense to follow his example. Later that day we drove about 100 miles north, within a few miles of hundreds if not thousands of LDS chapels and I wondered how many of the services were similar, better or perhaps worse than this one. I felt the Spirit of the Lord descend upon these people and I did not think He was very pleased for the most part. Sadness filled my heart.
Our Christmas Sunday was a bit wince-worthy as well. With no budget and dependent on whatever talent happens to reside in our ward boundary (and knowing how incredibly difficult it is for most people to speak/perform in front of an audience), I’m willing to go easy on those willing to put themselves front and center and appreciate their willingness (if not skill). Not sure how to resolve this problem in terms of creating an uplifting Christmas devotional though.
It’s too bad the LDS Church deleted the real second verse from Hark the Herald Angels Sing. The second verse in the LDS hymnal is actually the third verse of the actual song Charles Wesley wrote.
Good post and interesting perspectives and experiences. We had a good program, good music and good, simple, Christ-centered messages. I wonder if part of the reason so many LDS services miss the mark at Christmas and Easter is because so many LDS people have very mixed feelings about Christ, to be blunt. If you view God as demanding obedience from a long list of commandments and Christ as the back-up plan when you fall short, Christ is inevitably associated with guilt, mistakes and imperfection and does not elicit a lot to be excited about. People try their best, but their hearts aren’t in it, and it shows. Also, when so much of our access to Christ is framed through the institutional Church, many people direct their feelings about Christ on to the institutional Church. Looking at Mike’s example, the elderly speakers maybe thought that the closest they’d come to Christ were their encounters with apostles. Also, I agree with Cody Hatch that the Jesus in the Church videos is not someone many people would want to follow. For Christians who embrace the idea of grace, there is a lot more to celebrate and be excited about with Easter and Christmas (I know I’m not perfect and make so many mistakes, but God loves me anyway and I’m saved through Christ). I’m not saying Mormons aren’t Christians, but I think we need to swing the pendulum back toward grace to get people more excited about Christ.
No mention of Christ during our Christmas Eve service. At least it wasn’t as bad as 3 years ago when the bishop had people talk on temples, tithing, prayer, and scripture study. No celebration of Jesus’s birth.
felixfabulous,
Mormons do have mixed feelings about Christ and for a lot of the reasons you accurately list. But there are other reasons, too. Mormons aren’t even really sure who Christ is, theologically speaking. They know he is the Savior; they know he is the Son of God. The idea of being the “only-begotten Son,” however, only extends to the mortal Christ, for the pre-mortal Christ was one of billions of begotten sons. So…the term “only-begotten” needs to be qualified, as so many other Christian terms within Mormonism. The Christian terminology, taken at face-value, would only lead someone astray.
Also, the idea that Christ is in some way God is difficult for Mormons to grasp, because their idea of God is an exalted man who has a body of flesh and who also has a wife. At least, that is what they are told they need to acquire before they can become like God. Yet, the pre-mortal Jesus is still considered to be God (he was the God of the Old Testament, remember), but in what way exactly was he God pre-mortally? He had none of those things Mormons claim are pre-requisite for divinity, namely, a body and a wife. And to make things even more confusing,
Holland, very recently, preached that Christ had to come to earth to work out his own salvation. Yet…he was the God of the Old Testament? An unsaved God? Really?
Mormon theology is in shambles, and there is no making any rhyme or reason of it. On top of that most Mormons cannot discern where Christ ends and the Church begins, or vice versa. Yet…. they know the Church is true. How exactly is it true? What is it is preaching that is so obviously true?
I’m sorry to hear that some of you experienced Christmas services that didn’t even mention Christ. Let that be a sign to you. Maybe Christ isn’t really there?
Christ is just a mascot that Team LDS pushes out onto the field during the seventh-inning stretch to get the fans rallied. Then, he is forced back into the dug-out so the managers and coaches and players can get back to the real work of coming out at the top of their division. The LDS Church is about itself. That is what it has always been. Some of you see this.
Well…I have a way of getting myself kicked off of blogs, and I won’t cause anymore trouble on this one. It was interesting reading your thoughts for a few weeks. Good luck in your journeys.
We had three wards meet together for an hour of mostly music and song. Nicely done. Very Baptist prayer.
I sang in the choir of our ward and there were three songs that were fairly well done and one song we probably needed a couple more practices on. The Primary sang a song. Our choir director got together a string ensemble of nine youth playing “Still, Still, Still.” (It was good!) As songs were presented, one of our ward members read from Luke the story of Christ’s birth. A member of our bishopric gave a nice talk about Christ. We ended with the entire congregation singing “Hark The Herald Angels Sing” with a piano and organ accompaniment. Later, we met with my extended family (cousins, uncles and aunts) and went caroling…something we’ve been doing every Christmas Eve as a family for nearly 50 years in our small community (the exception being one Christmas Eve when it was 30 below zero). Later we gathered at one of our homes for food, conversation, and a short chaotic presentation of the Nativity by the youngest members of the family. This is generally how Christmas is for me and has been nearly my entire life. I am always amazed to hear that there are Mormon wards and families where Christ is barely mentioned around Christmastime. I’m not sure why that would be but I am grateful that the celebrations I participate in have Christ at their center.
Ward choir sang, a musical number performed by a pair, and a couple of speakers. Speakers talked about Christ; nothing really great, nothing really bad. If I had missed it I would not have missed much.
Intermediate hymn by the choir, one musical number by the primary kids, and other than the fact that the music was Christmas-themed, it was just another Sacrament Meeting. Disappointing. My parents’ ward puts on an amazing meeting full of Christmas songs sung by a powerful ward choir. If I lived in the same state, I’d skip my own to attend theirs.
Two-ward combo, which gave us a really nice combined choir. (Yay! Rare thing!) Two choir numbers, one nice Craig Petrie one and another kind of insipid one; guess which one is stuck in my head? Primary number. Both bishops spoke, and the member of the stake presidency who lives in my ward, because there seems to be some rule that whenever they’re around, they have to be offered the mike. All talks adequate at best, and at least Christmas-focused. Duration: 75 minutes. Carols as opening, rest, and closing hymns sung at full volume with gusto by combined congregations and all the college students home for break and all the C&E Mormons who never attend otherwise. It was nice, and it was over quickly. 🙂
As far as I’m concerned – The LDS Church spends WAY TO MUCH time focused on itself and NOT Christ. For the love of heaven – it is impossible for me to care less that Joseph Smith was born in December! And yet, every year – there he is!
Lemmingsforliberty—yikes, I’ve never heard a Christmas talk mention that about Joseph Smith! Thank goodness I’ve missed that.
lemmingsforliberty – Many years ago, my adult Baptist sister came to visit over Christmas. We all attended my parents’ ward together. That she agreed to come was a big deal, because she had no love for the LDS church. The focus was on Joseph Smith. I was so disappointed. I think the experience helped to solidify what she already thought – the LDS church puts more focus on their prophets than on Jesus Christ.
At my Ward, we had wonderful musical numbers done by the primary and choir, with excerpts of scriptures and lines read in-between pieces to tell the story of Jesus’s birth and to relay his message. Let there be no mistake about it, nor hint of doubt, Christ is the cornerstone of the Church of Jesus Christ of ladder day Saints. We had 25 days and 25 ways this month to learn that, but it appears some people failed to see Christ in it, I urge those that do not see him, to look closer with a softened heart. 💝