Advent I-IV? Or Christmas I-IV?

Last Sunday was Advent I. I’ll bet that whether they wanted to or not, many organists were playing Christmas carols in church that day, just because it was Advent I. And I’ll bet that many MORE organists will be playing Christmas carols NEXT Sunday, just because December will have arrived. Liturgically, those are poor excuses to drag out the Christmas music. Even worse, some churches will bring out the Advent wreaths, light the first candle with the proper reading – and then launch into Christmas carols.

But there are still many “holdout” churches and organists and directors of music, who will bring out the Christmas carols on Christmas Eve and keep them cranking until January 6. But there is yet another “holdout” level – those churches who follow the liturgical calendar to the letter by withholding Christmas carols until midnight on Christmas morning. (Christmas Eve is unfortunately named -- it is simply the day before Christmas. It is part of Advent.)

Yes, I have heard (and contributed to) all the grumbling of being saturated in Christmas carols throughout December. My gripe with it is not of a liturgical nature; rather, I have found that the carols are just not exciting on Christmas Eve when I have been playing them all month already. The best I can do is withhold the Willcocks arrangements until Christmas Eve – that becomes about the only excitement left to enjoy. But then there have been those years when I was not employed by a church and could church-hop on Christmas Eve. That is the ultimate fun at Christmas for me, and I look forward to doing that again this year.

Let’s be honest, folks: the liturgical calendar is completely man-made, and when “other” churches deviate from it, what’s the worst that can happen? Will lightning strike just because a Christmas carol is sung in church before Christmas? Will the organist grumble? About the only compelling reason to keep advocating for “liturgical correctness” is in the name of congregational education. Many churches have never heard of Advent. Many other churches have heard of it but mix it up with Christmas throughout December. Many others know all about it but just can’t stand not to be singing Christmas carols all month. The commercial pressure exerted all around us sometimes wins in our churches, and we have to decide year after year just how faithful we will be to a man-made standard. But the admonition to take a month to prepare for (not celebrate) the birth each year is compelling, and there is plenty of wonderful, applicable music to enjoy in church. Should we wish for more Christmas music, then we can attend any number of “holiday concerts” or shop at any number of retail stores and listen to their muzak. There is also Sirius and our own recordings of Christmas music. Church really CAN afford to hold out on Christmas music until it is time.

My Advent I this year was spent at St. Thomas Church, New York. Places like that serve as the choral standard to which many churches aspire. And many churches in this country get close. But many others can only press their faces up to the window of doing things the “English way,” but they just don’t have the resources, the boy voices, the administrative/clergy support, or the congregational education to pull it off. You can join the Royal School of Church Music, where you take an oath to do things here the way they do them in England (yet another man-made standard). In any event, it is hard work (St. Thomas requires three fulltime organists and two offices of administrative support), and if you don’t have the support, it is even harder, nigh unto impossible. Children’s choirs in this country have been utterly crippled by soccer, gymnastics, Karate lessons, praise bands, the youth minister’s cultish appeal, and a general disenchantment with church by millions of people.

Perhaps finding the occasional pocket of excellence in a sea of the cheap and commercial makes it that much more precious and worth fighting for. But if everyone did their church music the same wonderful way, would we get complacent? And then would we get bored and start wishing for simpler approaches?

Well, that's for another blogger to answer in full, but the answer is Yes, we would. And we already have.