Christmas traditions live on at Western Pa. churches

About 20 volunteers bustled about the sanctuary of St. Bartholomew parish in Crabtree one morning this week, converting the simple country church into an elaborately decorated sanctuary.

Garlands and wreaths now hang from the balcony, as a decorated tree and Nativity scene fill the space.

The group of helpers, primarily senior citizens, pitched in like pros, performing tasks as if they have been doing them for years.

“It’s a community event. We just ask for volunteers, and we just get them,” said Amy Falbo of Latrobe, a parishioner who helps to organize the annual decorating session.

Scenes similar to those at St. Bartholomew are repeated throughout Western Pennsylvania churches during the Advent season leading up to the celebration of the birth of Jesus in a manger in Bethlehem. Christmastime traditions are as much part of the routine as the services themselves.

At the Presbyterian Church of Plum Creek, an annual tradition is the live Nativity that parishioners perform in early December at the historic house of worship in Plum, said the Rev. Frank Hancock.

“It’s a big event, really for the whole community,” Hancock said. “It’s very well attended.”

Christmas Eve service will include traditional lessons and carols, culminating in the lighting of candles and singing of “Silent Night,” Hancock said.

The “hanging of the greens” service is an annual tradition at Brush Creek Evangelical Lutheran in Hempfield, said the Rev. Roger Steiner.

“We decorate the tree and put up candles in the church,” Steiner said. A special Christmas Eve candlelight service is held at 7:30 p.m. in the church.

The Scottdale Mennonite Church has a tradition of dramatizing the Nativity story, with children performing the characters and offering the thoughts of the angels and shepherds. Biblical readings from the Gospels of Matthew and Luke are included, said Pastor Leah Rittenhouse.

“We take a pause after the characters speak during the service to reflect on what the story might be like if it were to happen in our day and our time,” Rittenhouse said.

Rittenhouse sees the tradition as a way to engage the children in the Christmas Eve service.

“We’re looking at a piece of our history as immigrants in our time,” Rittenhouse said. “The Holy Family was in a different time and a different place.”

Back at St. Bartholomew, Falbo was holding an iPad with pictures from previous Christamases to allow the volunteers to replicate what they have done for so many years inside the church on Route 119.

At the same time, other volunteers continued the tradition of stringing lights on the fence and shrubbery around the church.

The support for maintaining the Christmas decorating tradition did not surprise the Rev. Justin Matro, whose parents and grandparents lived in Crabtree.

“We have a real active parish,” said Matro, whose church draws its members from about 500 households. “We have quite the team.”

Earlier Christmas Eve Masses, services

At St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Brackenridge, the traditional Christmas Eve Mass with the Holy Eucharist will be celebrated at 7:30 p.m., said the Rev. Frank Yesko.

The church had a later service but has scheduled it earlier to accommodate families with young children and an older population among its 100 congregants, Yesko said.

The fact there are fewer late-night church services is a concession to the demographics of the region, ministers said.

Plum Creek’s Hancock said the church had two Christmas Eve services, but that has been cut back to one service at 7 p.m.

Midnight Mass was a staple at Roman Catholic churches for many years. Now, of 78 parishes in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Greensburg, which covers Armstrong, Fayette, Indiana and Westmoreland counties, only about 20 will have a Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. Some churches have a Vigil Mass as early as 4 p.m. Christmas Eve, or services at 7 p.m. or 10 p.m. .

For those who want the experience of a Midnight Mass, there will be one at Blessed Sacrament Cathedral in Greensburg.

“The traditionalists love the Midnight Mass,” Matro said.

The Rev. James Gretz, pastor of St. Matthew Parish in Pittsburgh’s Mt. Troy neighborhood, favors the Midnight Mass over the Vigil Mass.

“When you look at the Vigil Mass, it is about something (birth of Christ) that is yet to happen. On Christmas Day, (Christ’s birth) has happened. The text for Midnight Mass, that’s really the celebration of Christmas,” Gretz said.

Midnight Mass is rotated among the four churches in the parish — All Saints in Etna, St. Aloysius in Reserve, St. Bonaventure in Glenshaw and Holy Spirit in Millvale — with this year being held at St. Aloysius, Gretz said.