You know how Christians keep saying that Christmas is a Christian holiday -- that it is, in fact, an exclusively Christian holiday which others should leave alone? Well, if Christmas is so Christian why are up to 10% of Protestant churches canceling their Sunday services this year? Because Christmas falls on a Sunday.
Yes, Christmas is so 'Christian' that Christian religious services have to be cancelled for it!
According to a December 2010 LifeWay Research report, 74 percent of Americans agree (strongly or somewhat) that "Christmas is primarily a day for religious celebration and observance," yet 67 percent of all Americans also agree that, "Many of the things I enjoy during the Christmas season have nothing to do with the birth of Jesus Christ." ...
Six percent of Protestant churches plan to have a Christmas Eve service but no service on Christmas Day. Twenty-eight percent plan to have a Christmas Day service but no service on Christmas Eve. Almost two-thirds (63 percent) plan to host both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day services.
Protestant pastors in the South are the least likely (62 percent) to host a Christmas Eve service compared to other regions. Full-time (71 percent) and part-time (74 percent) pastors are more likely to be planning a Christmas Eve service than bivocational or volunteer (53 percent) pastors. Pastors identifying themselves as Mainline (87 percent) are more likely to have a service on Christmas Eve compared to those identifying themselves as Evangelical (70 percent).
Nearly as many Protestant pastors plan to host services on New Year's Day (88 percent) as Christmas Day (91 percent). Far fewer are planning New Year's Eve services. By comparison, only 26 percent said they were planning for their church to host a Dec. 31 meeting.
Source: Lifeway
According to some pastors, there's too much competition from the celebration of Christmas as a family, gift-giving holiday. Parents have enough to do Christmas morning; they don't really have time to get kids dressed up nice then get everyone to a church service -- not when there is still so much to do at home. Those pastors who are having services seem to be switching to short services, too, in order to better compete.
Catholic, Orthodox, and Episcopal churches are having to make changes too. More and more are having "Christmas eve" services so as to not be forced to compete with Christmas. So-called "Midnight Mass" actually ends at midnight instead of starting at midnight. These are churches where church attendance on a holy day like Christmas is very, very important.
Christians are responsible for the commercialization and secularization of the Christmas holiday season. Now, Christian churches are experiencing one of the most serious consequences of this development: the bigger a commercial, secular Christmas gets, the more competition it creates for religious activities. We see that most clearly when Christmas falls on a Sunday and the situation will probably only get worse.
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