God Rest you Merry, Twenty-Two. .

In 2007 at work all the employees were given jackets with our company logo on them. The jackets were very warm but for one reason or another I never really wore mine. Last year when I started traveling to Denver I resurrected the almost new jacket and wore it to the office. My coworker Candi wears hers as well, and every time we wear them everyone in the office makes a big deal about how great they look and how can they get one. They were not popular when we got them the first time, and they were not an inexpensive gift, but to hear people talk they are much in demand.

So we did some looking and were able to locate the same jacket and ordered them for some of the office staff for this year. At $65 a pop I wanted this gift to be a huge success. Only, of course it wasn’t. The jackets fit differently and the people that got the jackets would rather have the thermal shirts and bags that the other employees got. All this to say, sometimes, maybe it’s better not to try and replicate things we liked about past Christmases.

I am telling myself this in attempt to let go of the feelings I have when I heard that the church here in Denver is not having Christmas eve services. When Kat shared that info with me I said the most unchristian hateful things. I know you are shocked. But really, it is Christmas Eve. The night that we are supposed to be celebrating Jesus’ birth, right? And no church?

I maybe am not the most devote Christian, and I am certainly not the most conservative or traditional one, but I do like Christmas Eve services. I have mocked the one at the UU church in Tucson, but I’d visit it again in a heartbeat. I attended and participated in so many Christmas Eve services at First Christian in Tucson, and I know I would be disappointed to go back, but I would in an instant. First Baptist FBC was not the same, but still familiar when I went back in 1999. And really, I don’t know that I am looking for someone to recreate the Christmas Eve services of my past, but. . .

I fully admit I must be old, or at least ‘old school’ when it comes to this issue. I get it, Christmas Eve on a Saturday night, when you have to have church again on Christmas morning is a lot of church. But how often does it happen? Once every 5 or 6 years? I almost feel like this is the new version of the churches that canceled Sunday morning church because it was Christmas morning back in the 90’s. Really, what is this about? Making more time to be with families? My family wants to be in church on Christmas Eve. Or at least, I want my family to be in church on Christmas Eve.

Sure I could find another church service to attend. With strangers. And maybe I will, but I have a hard enough time making myself go to church with the people I am just beginning to get to know. So I don’t know that I can make myself just pick a new church with strangers for one service.

I remember a conversation that I had with my Granddad Kinkade in 2002 about church. I was telling him I didn’t like the big contemporary churches with the praise bands and choruses projected on the walls, and I asked why it was so hard to just find a regular church like what I was used to. He said you can’t go looking for those churches anymore, because they aren’t there, and even if you find one like that, it’s not really the same as what you want it to be. He said God wants you in church.

So on the one hand, that conversation tells me to accept that maybe those Christmas Eve services I miss don’t exist any longer and that what is important is that I am trying to join in with other believers on Christmas morning. But the part where he said ‘God wants you in church’ also makes me think that maybe God wants everyone in church Christmas Eve.