Earlier this month, volunteers outside the Mary Queen of Vietnam Church in Village de l’Est were decorating the Christmas tree, installing string lights and setting up a nativity scene in the church’s front yard.

The whole Christmas decoration setup takes more than a week as New Orleans East’s Vietnamese Catholic community prepares for one of the year’s big holidays. The church is putting on English and Vietnamese sermons, Christmas caroling from different ministries, a play depicting the birth of Jesus and a Christmas Eve mass.

On Thursday (Dec. 15), one volunteer worked on reinforcing decorations swaying in the wind, a power drill in hand. “I want to do this for my community so that everyone can get into the spirit of the holidays,” said the volunteer, who said his name was Vu. “Doing this makes me happy. I don’t mind spending the time.”

For Vietnamese American Catholics in the city, Christmas is more than a time to reunite with family — it is also a time of celebration, giving back and resting as the year wraps up. 

Following the end of the Vietnam War, the Archdiocese of New Orleans decided to sponsor many Vietnamese refugees. The majority of newcomers were Catholic, prompting the construction of the Mary Queen of Vietnam Church. 

The church and its community remind Nghiem Vu, 91, of the home he left behind. Nghiem Vu has lived on and off in New Orleans East after first moving there in 2000. For him, Christmas is a time to gather and “nhậu” — drink liquor while reminiscing with family and friends. 

His friend, 75-year-old Binh Dinh, isn’t planning on a big Christmas celebration this year.  

A political prisoner back in Vietnam, Dinh was sponsored by the U.S. government to move to Village de l’Est in 1992, where he has stayed since, he said. His four children — three in Dallas and one in Atlanta — aren’t coming home for Christmas, though the family is reuniting after New Year’s for a wedding.

Still, Dinh and his wife are cooking some Vietnamese dishes for Christmas dinner with his wife’s mother, including boiled chicken with salt, pepper and lemon and Vietnamese coconut chicken curry, he said.

Thanh Tran said he is excited to spend time with his seven children and grandchildren during the holidays. Now 83, Tran moved to New Orleans in 1977. Unlike Dinh, Tran’s family plans to cook American Christmas food, he said.

Most of his children live around Village de l’Est. Only two of them moved out of town, to Alaska and New York, but are coming home for the holidays. Besides helping out with the church, Tran said he also looks forward to giving gifts to his family, something his parents and grandparents used to do growing up.

“Everyone loves presents,” he said. “But I especially love it when everyone gathers around, all excited to see what they’ll get.”

For Lang Le, Christmas is also a time to give. Le runs the local community center, Vietnamese Initiative in Economic Training (VIET). Established in 2001, the nonprofit provides much-needed services including after-school tutoring, citizenship application assistance and senior wellness programs.

“This is a time to give to the less fortunate,” she said. “We have immediate families in Vietnam or know priests or nuns that work in other countries that are in need. So we just save up and send it away.”

The VIET community center is also planning to sponsor seats for community members otherwise unable to pay to attend the organization’s Christmas buffet this year, Le said. She also looks forward to seeing her daughter’s performance with the church choir on Christmas Eve and spending time with her family.

“For me, it’s about giving thanks and being gracious,” Le said.

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Minh (Nate) Ha is a recent magna cum laude graduate from American University with a Bachelor's degree in journalism. His reporting work includes stories about how second-generation Vietnamese Americans...