The Worship Environment At Christmas

Will the parish Christmas decorations show good liturgical sense? Here are some guidelines for planning the worship environment for the Christmas season. Decorations should not be limited to the area around the altar, ambo (pulpit), and chair. To do so creates a stage setting. Keep this area free from distraction by limiting the floral arrangements around the altar and by placing crche figures elsewhere. Hackneyed decorations, such as masses of poinsettias or wreaths hung on every pillar, though beautiful in themselves, can have a numbing effect. Such overkill also obscures what these decorations signify. First determine how you will embellish the assembly area, especially in the space over everyone's heads. Then determine where more "intimate," deeply traditional elements will be put-an apple-hung fir tree, a large suspended globe of intersecting wreaths, a place for the icons of the Christmastime feasts, the Bethlehem scene. These things are best located where they can be visited…