This discussion is, I suggest, unnecessarily muddied by all kinds of irrelevant ancillaries. The only question is whether it is God or the Church that issues the call to worship on any first day of the week. Whose call is it, really? If it is the Church who in fact decides whether or not to worship, if she issues her own call rather than herald outward the call she has received and heard from above, if it is the Church’s work to summon the assembly of saints when and how she wishes (and there are many who think this), then the question whether or not she will do so on a certain occasion is meaningful and the legitimate subject matter of debate.
But if—as our Reformed symbols and the Scriptures themselves make clear—she has no such power nor such prerogative, if it is in fact the Lord who calls his people together when she is gathered for worship, then it is frankly irrelevant what she thinks of it and whether she thinks it convenient for logistical, private, or family reasons. It is not legalistic but liberating to humbly acknowledge that her only duty, and her highest honor, is to heed His summons to the waters of life and the Bread of heaven he is pleased to distribute to his gathered ones.
If it is in fact the Lord who calls his people together when she is gathered for worship, then it is frankly irrelevant what she thinks of it and whether she thinks it convenient for logistical, private, or family reasons.
To be sure, there are sad providential realities for life in a fallen world which unavoidably prevent the saints from safely assembling. But the Christian grieves and mourns these hindrances and does not bend to them easily, always preferring the company of the living God to any other. And yet, this is also true of any Lord’s day, and has nothing to do with Christmas Day in particular.
The misstep in this conversation, I suggest, was very early on, namely, in ever thinking the Church has such a right as to raise the question of “worship today or no?” when the Lord has raised his Son on the first day of the week and thus called it is His day. It is not our question to answer. The Lord calls to worship, not the Church, and He quite simply has not excepted Christmas Day from his summons. Both the Spirit and the Bride say, in holy unison, “Come!” (Rev. 22:17). Would we really introduce a jarring dissonance between the Church and the Spirit in this centrally important call?