The holiday season is a hectic time for most people, with vacation plans, shopping trips and family concerns crowding their schedules. But for ministers, Christmas is even more frenzied and busy — they don’t even get the day off.

"There are a lot of extra pastoral duties this time of year," said the Rev. James Holmes, pastor of St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Dupont Circle. "We have to make sure shut-ins are seen, we have to plan extra services, and there are all those end-of-the-year administrative duties that have to get done."

"It’s not so much stressful, it’s that you find yourself stretched out thinner," said the Rev. Angela Taylor, minister at Allen Chapel AME Church in Southeast Washington’s Knox Hill neighborhood.

She said that in addition to its regular ministries, her church is also planning neighborhood caroling and a Christmas concert.

"The thing about the work is you got to love it if you’re going to do it," Taylor said.

Taylor, who ministers to many single-parent homes and other "non-traditional" families, said this time of year is particularly hard on some of the children in her church.

"We have a lot of youth that are raising themselves," Taylor said. "This is the time of year when a lot of children act out."

She said Christmas and summer are the challenging times of year for her ministry.

"We try to run something all year round," Taylor said, "because there’s so much to do."

Many Catholic priests take vacations or go on retreats after the Christmas season to rest and recuperate, said Susan Gibbs of the Archdiocese of Washington. She said they are generally too busy during the holiday season to take breaks because they are ministering to their parishioners who themselves are suffering from holiday stress. Gibbs said the stress from ministering to parishioners "is all good stress."

Holmes said his key to dealing with the stresses of the season is organization. "I try to be well organized and know what I have to do and not put it off," he said.

Holmes also said one of the benefits of the season of giving is he has many parishioners who help out in various areas.

"I’ve been doing it for many years, so I have learned how to do it by now," said the Rev. Robert L. Walls of New Macedonia Baptist Church in Southeast Washington, about the Christmas frenzy.

He said his church holds lower-key Christmas festivities than most, however.

"We don’t celebrate Christmas with fancy balls and dinners," Walls said. He said his congregation instead chooses to hold fellowship dinners to bring community members together and to serve dinners to those not able to afford meals.

Gibbs said that while Christmas is busy for Roman Catholic priests, their really busy season is around Easter week, when they plan and hold masses the entire week.

Copyright 1998, The Common Denominator