BUFFALO, N.Y. — If a religious service is part of your Christmas Eve tradition, they are back for in person worship this year. But there are some modifications as we still deal with COVID-19.
Volunteers were busy with final decorations Christmas Eve morning to make sure Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church in Buffalo's Old First Ward will have a special glow for the Christmas Eve and Christmas Day Services.
And amidst the decorations, the now ubiquitous sanitizer and boxes of masks.
"We've been given probably a thousand masks that have been donated to us. So there's really no reason anybody should be coming in without a mask on. They're available at the doors of the church but most people now as I said - almost everyone comes in with a mask," Father Paul Seil said.
Fortunately, unlike the somewhat darker days of 2020, services can now be held in person. That's even with spaced out presence in the pews for the parishioners.
However, the online option of course still exists.
"There's a lot of opportunities. Livestreaming, television masses. It's not the same as getting together but it's some kind of a substitute if there's a certain fear factor or if you're sick right now," Seil said.
It's a similar option at Trinity Episcopal Church on Delaware Avenue in downtown Buffalo. They held the afternoon service, which will be available online with Christmas music filling the beautiful and historic church sanctuary.
And a service online is now widely accepted with the pandemic even as in person services were restored.
"We were on line only through the end of May in 2021. We didn't have an in-person service in church until June. And at that point we kept livestreaming services also. So we've been an online community caring for this amazing, historic, beautiful building while we weren't using it for all that time," Reverend Matt Lincoln of Trinity Episcopal said.