This Scripture Central video explains how many of the Christmas celebrations of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is both similar and unique compared to other Christian traditions.
Some points it covers:
Latter-day Saints celebrate Christmas by focusing on the birth of Jesus Christ, similar to other Christians, but with fewer formal religious rituals.
Common Christmas traditions such as Santa Claus, decorations, and Christmas movies are embraced by Latter-day Saints.
The community emphasizes holiday giving and service through various activities, such as food drives and the “Light the World” campaign.
Christmas caroling remains a popular tradition among Latter-day Saints, even as it declines in other communities.
Unique Latter-day Saint traditions include the First Presidency Christmas Devotional and the innovative “Giving Machines” concept.
The “Light the World” campaign encourages acts of service and has gained significant attention, raising millions for charitable causes.
Local congregations host Christmas events as a form of community outreach, inviting non-members to join in the celebrations.
The Christmas worship service, or sacrament meeting, focuses on Jesus Christ and includes singing, praying, and the sacrament.
The video highlights the importance of centering Christmas on Jesus Christ and serving others, reflecting the core values of Latter-day Saints.
TRANSCRIPT (Some spelling errors)
[00:00:00.10] – Speaker 1
Roman Christmas is different. There are no two ways about it, but you might be surprised about the specific things that set Latter-day Saints apart. Yeah, some of them are quirky and others are straight up awesome. This is everything you need to know about Christmas for Mormons. We’re properly known as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A lot of people don’t even know if Latter-day Saints celebrate Christmas at all, so there naturally might be a lot of questions and mystery around how they celebrate it and if you get invited to one of their Christmas events about what you can expect. I’m a Latter-day Saint, and so I’ll be sharing from my own experience as well as the anecdotal experiences of my Latter-day Saint family, friends, and Instagram followers. I actually didn’t always think as fondly of our Christmas traditions. I had a lot of holy envy for some of the majest honesty and ritual of other Christian churches, and I sometimes felt like ours were lame in comparison. But over the years, I have come to see our observance of Christmas as uniquely special. In this video, I’m going to be trying my best to explain why I think Roman Christmas is oddly endearing.
Let’s first clear the air. Do Mormons celebrate Christmas? Yes, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints celebrate Christmas. We believe in God, the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost, like most Christians, so we celebrate the birth of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ every December 25th, just like the rest of the world. If you clicked on this video, you maybe already suspected that we celebrate Christmas, so that might not be a surprise to you. But how we celebrate Christmas may surprise you, both because of what we do and what we don’t do. Many people think Latter-day Saints have strange rituals, but at least when it comes to Christmas, we actually have fewer religious rituals than other religions. We don’t have a formal liturgy around advent or epiphany. Individuals and families find various ways to celebrate and spiritually prepare for Christmas, but we don’t have very strict, specific rules about what you should sing on, what days, what worship services you need to attend, what candles you need to light, and so on. We do have some distinct, unique traditions in our faith, but so that we’re all on the same page, here are some of the ways that we are just boringly like everyone else. [00:02:02.21] – Speaker 1
First, Santa Claus. Most families do Santa Claus with their kids. They fill stockings, wrap gifts onto the Christmas tree, leave out milk and cookies, all that good stuff. Decorations. I don’t think we have anything unique in how we decorate for Christmas. We’ve got Christmas trees, wreaths, nativity sets, Christmas lights, obnoxious inflatable lawn, declarations, you name it, we got it. The Nativity Story. Like many Christians, we find time during the holiday season to read and sometimes act out the story of Christ’s birth in Luke 2. In addition to Luke 2, a story in the Book of tells about what happened in the Americas when Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Sometimes we’ll study that story as well, but for the most part, we tend to stay focused on the New Testament stories during the Christmas season. In fact, I asked my Instagram followers what their favorite Christmas traditions were so that you can see for yourself exactly what very typical Latter-day Saints do to celebrate Christmas. They said things like singing Christmas songs, watching Christmas movies like Elf or the Muppets Christmas Carol. That one is the best Christmas movie. Baking Christmas cookies, getting Christmas PJs, decorating the tree, having a big Christmas breakfast, doing Secret Santa, giving homemade gifts, and a whole lot more. [00:03:01.09] – Speaker 1
As you can see, this is some pretty normal Christmas stuff. But there are things that might not be unique to Latter-day Saint culture, but I do think we tend to have our own spin on them or even take them to the next level. These fall into a bit of a middle category. Lauterdy Saints take holiday giving and serving very seriously. Lots of local congregations or wards will do sub for Santa, giving trees, food drives, secret Santas, various ways to find families or individuals in need that could use a little extra Christmas cheer or help. Our women’s group, the Relief Society, are absolute pros at organizing our people to bring food and meals to people in the ward that might need it most. Some bishops or leaders of the ward may encourage members to increase their contribution to their fast offering, which is a voluntary donation that goes directly to helping members in the ward or area that are struggling financially and could use a little extra assistance. I’m going to save one of our most impressive and unique forms of holiday giving for a little later because it deserves its own section. One of my personal favorite traditions that we do for serving is Christmas caroling. [00:04:01.02] – Speaker 1
This is such as quintessential traditional Christmas thing, but in my experience, hardly anyone does it anymore except for Latter-day Saints. Somehow, Latter-day Saints’ insane commitment to Christmas cheer has upheld this dying tradition of your year, and I am here for it. When was the last time someone rang your doorbell just to sing a Christmas carol to you? Well, we do it, gosh, darn it, and we love it. My own family went Christmas caroling every year to our neighbors, and I didn’t even realize how unusual this was until A local newspaper contacted us because they wanted to do a story on caroling, but they could find literally no one in the entire town that did Christmas caroling except for the one Morman family. I know a lot of Latter-day Saint youth groups will go Christmas caroling in December, particularly to families in the ward or the neighborhood they feel could use an extra dose of love, friendship, or Christmas cheer. Interestingly, I did a very unscientific poll on my Instagram story asking, Have you gone Christmas caroling in the last five years? 727 people responded with 35% people saying yes and 65% saying no. It’s possible that Christmas caroling is waning even in our culture, but in the meantime, I think it is just so fun and rewarding to praise God, have fun, and have an excuse to say hello to your neighbors and spread Christmas cheer. [00:05:15.17] – Speaker 1
Now we have arrived at our completely unique 100% Latter-day Saint traditions. One of the most beloved Christmas traditions for Latter-day Saints is something that everyone in the church across the world does together at the same time. It’s 100% unique to us and in some ways, it’s how we usher in the Christmas season. It’s the First Presidency Christmas Devotional. This is a 90-minute worldwide broadcast streamed from church headquarters. Thousands of people gather into the conference center on Temple Square, and many thousands more live stream it across the world to hear our top leaders deliver inspirational messages on the true meaning of Christmas and keeping our hearts focused on Jesus Christ. They deck the halls with the most beautiful Christmas decoration, and music is provided by the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square. It usually occurs a week or so after Thanksgiving giving on a Sunday evening. It’s a fitting way to welcome in the Christmas season. The other big thing that church headquarters heads up is the Light the World campaign. This is an initiative that’s been around for about nine-ish years, and it’s an attempt to create a movement around serving others and thinking of Christ at Christmas. [00:06:15.19] – Speaker 1
They have an admin calendar where they suggest small acts of service you can perform on each day leading up to Christmas. The website has all sorts of ideas about how to make Christmas more meaningful, and the initiative included some pretty cool promotions, including completely taking over Times Square in New City last year for a mind-blowing digital display of lights about remembering Jesus Christ. It was so cool to watch that viral video last year of people in Times Square just stunned to see all of the advertisements completely blacked out and then slowly taken over by a beautiful message about lighting the world with service and love this holiday season. This year, they did a similarly impressive campaign where they did a bunch of digital display ads in several prominent public places around the world. But as I alluded to earlier, perhaps the most effective part the Light the World campaign deserves its own section. One of the most impressive innovations in holiday giving has drawn the attention to the likes of Travis Kelsey, Paul Rudd, Drew Barrymore, Donny Osmond, and has resulted in 17,000 Goats. This movement has generated over $30 million in charitable donations, operates in over 100 cities in 13 countries across the globe, creates a more meaningful giving experience, doesn’t even require a single human interaction. [00:07:26.11] – Speaker 1
And the craziest thing is it is run by the Mormons. The The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints invented the concept of the Giving Machine eight years ago, and they’ve been a disruptor in the giving sector ever since. Instead of clicking on a charity ad on Facebook or dropping your change into a bucket outside a grocery store, these Giving machines create a memorable and novel experience for the giver while contributing to worldwide charitable giving. It honestly makes giving easy and fun. It’s basically the best vending machine where you pick a specific deliverable that you want to donate, like an infant care package, meals, or even two piglets or a goat, and then you them. You don’t get anything in return. Your donation will go straight to purchasing that item for an individual or family in need this holiday season. You get to see exactly what your contribution is doing. It feels like a personal interaction, and you can walk away feeling like you spread a little bit more goodness in the world. But the cool thing is that these things are not just flashy, they’re incredibly efficient. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints covers the cost of the machines and the transactions so that 100% of your donation can go to the cause you selected.
Thanks to the 250 charities that have partnered with the church to make this happen. Just last year alone, $10 million were donated to provide 2 million meals, 17,000 goats, 11,000 school backpacks, 7,000 shoes, and a whole lot more to people all over the world. The giving machines are super cool and their impact just keeps growing. But in addition to stuff at a church-wide level, there are a couple of noteworthy things that Latter-day Saints do on a local level in their own wards. If you are not Roman, but you have friends who are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, there’s a chance you might get an invitation to attend one of their Christmas events holiday season. So here’s what you need to know to be prepared for that. Because Christmas is a time where we as Latter-day Saints share a lot in common with other Christians, Latter-day Saints will usually use Christmas as an opportunity for more community outreach and to invite neighbors who aren’t of our faith to get to know us a little bit better. This usually happens in one of a couple of ways. One way is church members may invite their friends and neighbors to attend our annual Christmas worship service that happens the Sunday before Christmas, or they may invite you to one of their activities. [00:09:26.20] – Speaker 1
Local congregations often hold an annual Christmas activity that’s intended as a way for people of other faiths to come and join with us. This could be a Christmas party, a live nativity, night in Bethlehem display, a Christmas concert, a number of other things. And yeah, they can be cheesy, but I think they’re pretty fun. So if you get one of these invitations, I’d encourage you to check it out. Maybe it’s every single bit as weird as you thought it would be. It’ll make for a great story. Or just maybe you’ll end up enjoying yourself. Hopefully, you’ll get closer to your neighbors, and more importantly, closer to Jesus Christ. But even more important than our many fun Christmas activities is the spiritual culmination of Christmas, our annual Sunday Christmas service. If you’ve been invited to a Christmas worship service by a Latter-day Saints, you may have some questions about what you can expect. And all of this is completely understandable. As a Latter-day Saint myself, I remember feeling disoriented the first time I attended a Catholic Mass. It was a total fish out of water. I was super unsure of how I was supposed to participate and still be respectful. [00:10:20.28] – Speaker 1
Am I supposed to sing along with the antiphonal songs? Do I kneel down and pray? Do I take communion? I wish someone had made a video guide for me. So here’s one on how Christmas Christmas worship service goes for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. First of all, we call our weekly worship service, sacrament meeting, and it’s pretty much always on Sunday. Even when Christmas lands in the middle of the week, we don’t have a midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. We keep our Christmas celebration on the Sunday before Christmas. When you walk in on Sunday, there probably will be some modest Christmas decoration like wreaths or floral arrangements. It’s usually pretty simple, though. You sit down in your seat and sacrament meeting starts when one of the congregations’ leaders gets up and announces the order of events in that day’s Then we sing a congregational hymn together, usually a Christmas carol, and a volunteer member of the congregation will go up and offer a prayer to formally begin our worship. Feel free to join us in both the singing and the praying. For prayer, we usually fold our arms and close our eyes as we quietly listen. [00:11:14.29] – Speaker 1
We haven’t even gotten to the real Christmas celebration yet, but this next part is the most important, receiving the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. Others might call it communion or the Eucharist or what have you, but in the Church of Jesus Christ, we typically call it the sacrament. It’s eating bread and drinking water as a symbolic representation of how Jesus Christ died and atoned for our sins. After another hymn is sung and a short prayer is offered, volunteer clergy will go around the room and offer a piece of bread and water to each person in the congregation so that they can remember Jesus Christ’s atonement and recommit to their promises to God to be his disciples. Eating the bread and drinking the water is intended as a way for baptized members of the church to renew their covenants with God. But it’s also about remembering Jesus, which anyone can do. If you’re just visiting, you can choose to partake when the tray is passed to you if you want. There’s no rules against that, but no pressure either way. After the administration of the sacrament is the Christmas program. On a normal Sunday, we’d have a series of sermons after the sacrament, but for Christmas, we make it a special musical celebration of Jesus Christ. [00:12:18.23] – Speaker 1
Here’s a funny thing. We don’t actually have a prescribed formula for what this Christmas program looks like. Every congregation may do it a little or a lot differently, but here are some of the most common things I’ve seen in Christmas programs around the church. I very often see a narration of a story, like the Nativity story, interspersed with songs performed by various volunteers in the congregation. So one person might get up and start reading from Luke 2, pausing at key moments for a violin performance of a Christmas carol, or for the children to come up and sing a song about Mary and Joseph, or for a choir to sing about the angels and the shepherds. Every congregation does it differently, even from year to year. So sometimes it might be a narration of the Nativity story. Sometimes it might be a series of mini sermons about the meeting of Christmas, interspersed with songs. But all of these programs program’s focused on the birth of Jesus Christ, praising him through word, prayer, and song. At the end, we’ll all sing another Christmas Carol together, and then the meeting officially ends when someone gets up to offer a final prayer for the meeting. [00:13:11.12] – Speaker 1
It’s one of my favorite Sundays of the year because it’s full of joy and praise, even when the piano is out of tune or when the speakers are a little monotone or when the children’s choir is out of control, despite all of that, or maybe because of it, I’ve often felt the spirit warm my heart. Nothing brings the spirit of Christmas or a testimony of Christ quite like sacred Christmas music. If you are thinking about attending a Latter-day Saint Christmas service for the first time, let me know how it goes. If you’re thinking of inviting someone to come to your ward for Christmas Sunday, send them this video so they can know what to expect. While Latter-day Saints have a lot of Christmas traditions in common with others, clearly, there are a few things that set us apart. I think that the common thread running through all of these unique traditions is very telling. In the uniquely Latter-day Saint Christmas traditions, the common denominator that I’ve been able to determine is a focus on Jesus Christ and serving others. Our Christmas Sunday Worship, the First presidency Devotional, the Light the World campaign, are all about centering the Christmas season on Jesus Christ. [00:14:05.29] – Speaker 1
Our local ward Christmas activities, the giving machines, the focus on fast offerings and caroling, all of that helps us think more about others. I think that’s great. Yeah, our ward activities are pretty cheesy, verging on cringe sometimes. Our worship services might not have all the pomp and circumstances as some other churches, and it may feel too formal for others. But in my time, I’ve always enjoyed them and felt the spirit of Christmas. I’ve come to appreciate the powerful simplicity simplicity of our observance and that we allow for so much flexibility and adaptation for different cultures and life circumstances. Everyone can celebrate Christmas in a way that meets their needs and the needs of their family. We just do our best to emphasize that it all begins and ends with Jesus Christ. He’s my Lord and my savior, and I’ve found Christmas to be a special time for me to remember that there’s no empty tomb without the manger. If you’ve wanted something new about Latter-day Saints or you’ve enjoyed this content, consider making a donation to Scripture Central so I can keep making videos about relevant and trending topics for Latter-day Saints.
dyejo
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