It's a very different Christmas day for many church-goers across Auckland

Auckland's Catholic Diocese says it has just under 200-thousand members across 68 parishes, from Thames-Coromandel to Northland.

Sadly very few of them can operate today, under the red setting of the covid traffic light system.

Spokeswoman Lyndsay Freer says the limit of 100 vaccinated people in one place makes it difficult to gather for worship.

She says the cathedral in the heart of Auckland has up to eight-thousand people for Christmas mass, and her own parish has 16-hundred.