Terry Mattingly has a good article up online: Church calendar Christmas Crunch.
You know all the ruckus about megachurches being closed on Christmas, a Sunday, this year? Seems its been a problem all along.
"Going to church on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day was something the Catholics did and all the people in those other churches that followed the church calendar," said John Witvliet, director of the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship at Calvin College."For most Protestants, Christmas was about being with your family. Churches weren't open on Christmas, but nobody thought much about it -- unless Christmas fell on a Sunday. Then things could get complicated."
This is precisely what happened this year, of course, when some of America's largest evangelical churches made headlines by canceling their Sunday services on Christmas Day, urging the faithful to stay home with their families. The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune and many other news organizations said this was an ironic decision in a year when conservatives were attacking any merchants and government leaders who refused to "put Christ back in Christmas."
It seemed, said Witvliet,