The Children's Christmas Mass

Even if you're not Catholic, or even Christian, I still would recommend going to a children's mass on Christmas Eve. Since our family does most of our family festivities on Christmas Eve, we almost always go to mass on Christmas Eve. If we're lucky, like we were this year, we'd get the children's mass.

It's not perfect, no masses ever are. You have to get there early to get a seat and there are babies crying and screaming at the top of their little lungs.

However, I think that the Christmas pagent by itself single-handedly makes up for any slight chaos. All the noisy kids go silent as soon as they see other kids dressed up like angels, 3 wise men, shepherds equipped with fake sheep, and of course Mary and Joseph. The church we went to last night even went a step further and had a real baby Jesus. I think children as well as adults can appreciate this story.

And who could not love the children's choir? Little kids and their parents dressed up in festive attire, singing slightly off-key, and signing Silent Night (I was amazed this kid who was like 3 years old could sign language too). And like most Christmas masses, the choir sings the favorite songs that people will actually get into, especially Joy to the World.

Finally, the priest will finally keep the homily simplistic and short to keep the attention of the kids, but I think that everyone can appreciate this too. Profound lessons don't have to be wrapped up deep theological philosophy or history. The lessons that kids learn are probably the ones that we need to be reminded of the most. And last night, the lesson was all about giving.

So while I used to secretly have a grudge against C&E Christians (the ones who only went to mass on Christmas & Easter), I now say the more the merrier.