Sadly (IMO), this is my experience, too.

I still love an honest-to-God MIDNIGHT Mass . . . but my dad (now 90) doesn't want to be out NEARLY that late!

...so we've been going to the 5PM service the past few years.

JC Fisher

God is still glorified . . . but "Silent Night" just ain't the same when there's still afternoon light coming in... }-p

Of course, if Fr. Nicolosi is offering communion to the non-baptized he is violating the canons, but....

Nicolosi is in the Anglican Church of Canada so does not live under TEC canons.

Funny the writer should say that about baptism - a family is coming home to join their larger family at our church for Christmas this year and they want to have the baby and his dad baptized, as well as a cousin. I offered Christmas Eve, Christmas Day...So, how big a stretch is it to open baptism ( ! ).

Seriously, this year we are not having a late night service. Over the last three years it has become clear that no one is going to come to that service. However, in advance of this post, we are already considering an earlier service, and we will offer the first Spanish Mass this year.
Strangely, Christmas Day is always a popular service - simple, small table in the midst of the people instead of the high altar, and a clear light filling the building that I don't see on any other day, including Sunday, at 10:00 in the morning.

A good church meets a variety of needs. Why not several different options? For me, that's old-fashioned Solemn High Mass with traditional music and lots of incense.

Gary's points are well made and well taken. However, everything should be prefaced by "Work very closely with the appropriate lay leadership before making any changes.".

There are communities where the "midnight mass at 11 PM" is very well attended. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. However, I agree with Gary that this is less and less the case. Because I'm on sabbatical, I will be happy not to be at my former church this Christmas where the 5 PM service is fairly full but has no choir and no orchestra. The 11 PM service, however, has less than 1/4 of the attendance of the 5 PM but has "always" had choir and orchestra.

Change? Of course. However, no one is willing to budge. I've offered a 3 PM and a 8 PM. I've offered just one service at whatever time anyone wants and "pull out all the stops" for that one service - choir, orchestra, kids, Santa. Nope. When I've whispered to a few of the parish cogniscenti, "Well, I am the rector, right? Why don't I just change it and see what happens?" The answer I got was, "People will be so angry with you they'll boycott the service and you'll have the worst attendance ever."

Gary's ideas are great, but when you start messing with Christmas, you are messing with memories. Proceed with great caution.

I liked Gary's article. What is interesting about the Canadian Church is that invitations to persons not baptized to receive communion go quietly forward under the radar in some places. However, baptized communicant members of the church who happen to be gay or lesbian cannot, because of the Marriage Canon I'm told, have their marriages blessed. I'm thinking we really should try and be...what's the word I'm looking for? Oh yeah, more consistent.
We could benefit from a theological discussion about communicants and baptism. The Eucharist is a foretaste of the messianic banquet. I don't think that banquet will be limited to Christian ticket holders. Besides, if you have Jewish friends, you know that you don't have to be Jewish to be invited over for passover. But, on second thought, if we have a theological discussion in Canada about communicating the not baptized, we would probably need study guides and discernment groups and facilitators and position papers named after a Saint or two, and there would of course need to be a moratorium while we did all this, and the instruments of Communion would have to come to town...so nah! Let's just keep things under the radar..its just too much work, too risky, too upsetting for good church goers to try and include everybody as a matter of open conviction.

My experience is that is very easy to overdo Christmas, that most people who come to mass on Christmas/Eve just want the familiar, to sing "Christmas songs" and hear them sung, to enjoy the candlelight and the calm in the midst of a hustle-bustle schedule outside the church doors. The length of the liturgies is something I agree with, but I say that with the caveat of who cares if I agree or not, what does the Liturgy need? If it takes an hour and a half to get it done, then so do it. But second collections and long sermons and extended hymn concertantes and 10 min motets might be excessive in this day and age; some people feel so pressured that an hour is all they can spare, but if we can give them an hour of Holy Rest, then let's do it.
Late afternoon, and then late night. What more does one need? Christmas Day? Maybe, if it is the tradition of the community, but don't expect much after the blowout masses the day before! My family actually goes to church late night on Christmas Eve AFTER family obligations, so go figure, but I know that a 7-8 pm principal Eucharist on Christmas Eve would put a lot of stress on some families.
Sorry for the rambling. Oh, and get over it, all ye canons nazis, there's going to always be lots and lots of "First Communions" at Christmas and Easter, always has been, always will be. I kinda imagine that God likes it that way, or all the "unwashed" wouldn't show up in search, and wouldn't get up the courage to come forward to Taste And See. All the canons in the world aren't going to change that.

I am afraid that I fall on the negative side of this article. Sometimes something worthwhile is going to take some effort. Yes, it's a bit of an effort to get to church at 11PM, but IMHO, it is always "worth it."
We have far too much "quick and easy" at Christmas time. For people who want a few carols, a cookie, a hug and some pretty lights, there are lots of ways to get it. For those of us who wish to celebrate the Nativity of our Lord, being "fobbed off" with "carols and cuddles" at 7PM is a tremendous disappointment.
I think that it would be reasonable to have an early "fluff" service for those who want it. I am not always sure that a "family" service that has to accommodate the small kids needs to be "early." Kids beg to be up late, and I have extremely fond memories myself of late night services.
If we "stoop" too low for Christmas, what have we achieved? None of those who require that kind of thing are going to be back short of a stop in next year anyways.
I would advocate for Solemn High Mass at Midnight for those who are the central core of the church's liturgical life. To spend weeks in "preparation" in Advent only to get some fluff on Christmas is a betrayal of our liturgical discipline.
BTW, it always bugs me that we do not sing the Gloria for the four weeks of Advent in anticipation of its return in the appropriate context on Christmas, and then we often get fobbed off with a hymn paraphrase (e.g. Angels we have hear on high, a fine hymn, but not the equivalent of the Gloria). If we do not sing the angelic song on Christmas, why should we sing it at all? I also hate "amputating" hymns for Christmas deleting stanzas to make them "easier" or to accommodate a very early service time. I am always particularly bugged about ditching the final stanza of Adeste Fideles (Yea, Lord, we great thee, born this happy morning...) because we have to have the service at 7PM. ( If we started at 11PM, it would be the "morning" of the liturgical day and we would not need to alter it. )
By all means, offer a "fluff" service early if you wish, but have mercy on those of us who wish to celebrate the feast with all the appropriate solemnity.
Thanks for letting me get that off my chest. I feel ever so much better.

After a couple of years at my current church it finally sank in that 5 pm Christmas Eve was not the "children's" service, as it had been other places, but the principal service. So we have full adult and kids choirs and the major music then. The late (11) service is much quieter and smaller, but has become wonderful in a different sort of way.

"All who seek God are welcome to the Lord’s Table to receive the Bread and Wine of Christ’s Body and Blood. Even if you do not seek God, you are still welcome because God seeks you. Come and hold in your hand and taste on your lips the love which we cannot comprehend.”

One of the most beautiful little bits of Eucharistic theology I've ever read. What Would Jesus Do? Jesus openly flaunted the "canons" of his day to bring people to the table and to God. I see little harm in us doing the same.

Ditto, what Adam said.

Dr. Shy, I too love the late service. This is the one my family went to every year from the time we became Episcopalians when I was six years old.

Where I serve, my first year the late service had a decent participation. However, the last three years there has been no attendance. The great gothic pile on the hill with its high church liturgy pulls everyone in. I have no intention of trying to make the church I serve compete with that. Mother Kaeton, I have prepared the leadership for these three years for the possible demise of the late service. I grieve for its loss. I grieve more when there are far fewer at the late service than the faithful 12 at the Christmas Day service.

I know, when 2 or 3 are gathered and it's not about the numbers - however it's no longer the experience the four who come late on Christmas Eve are looking for. They remember and look for the filled pews. This year we shall bow to reality. And I will mourn for a time.