What Are You Doing Christmas Eve?

Even though the real song title is “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?” perhaps it’s time to take a look at your Christmas worship tradition. If you’re a Principal, Administrator, Advancement Director or Development Director at a Catholic school, and you don’t attend Christmas Mass at the parish where your school is located, maybe it’s time to do that. If you do attend Mass there, maybe it’s time to attend ALL the Masses there this Christmas.

There are many Christian communities that have celebrations before Christmas day so that Christmas can be spent with family and friends, or your Christian school may be supported by many Christian churches. If so, then this may be the year for you and your staff to celebrate Christmas with the churches and communities that support your school.

Right now, you may be saying, “Hey, give me a break! It’s Christmas! We want to spend this time with family and friends!” While that’s understandable, remember that Christmas Masses are the most attended Masses of the year. If the “Four P’s of Marketing” (Product, Price, Placement and Promotion) dictate you have a quality product at a value-oriented price that you need to promote, then what better Placement is there than the largest audience your church or parish provides at any point in the year? To miss this is to miss the boat – big time.

If your school serves many parishes or churches, use your parents. Ask them to distribute brochures about your school and invitations to Catholic Schools Week events (yes, that’s coming up in just a few weeks) to those parents with children as they’re being dismissed from Mass. One person usually isn’t enough – you’ll need to cover all exits, and some exits might need more than one person. For Christian schools, go and do likewise for those churches that send students to your school.

Wait – let me guess your reaction: “Oh, no one’s going to want to do that!” Remember, those that do what others won’t are the usually the companies that stand out from the rest of the crowd. Those that do what everyone else does just follow the pack, and unless you’re the lead dog, the view doesn’t change.

While we need to prepare our hearts during Advent for the coming of Christ into our lives, you also have to prepare parents of young children to start thinking about where their children will be educated, and what kind of environment they believe is best for their children. Christmas celebrations are a great time to kick off the planned process of changing parents minds, preparing the way they’ll be taking.

And isn’t Advent all about preparing the way…

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