An AP story of yesterday tells us about churches that are holding Blue Christmas services for pastoral care of people depressed by the holidays, e.g., because of loss of loved ones. I see a wonderful tie-in here with Advent and its preeminent message of hope. The use of blue vestments at these Blue Christmas services is fitting: Blue, an accepted liturgical color for Advent, is said to symbolize “the blue of a new dawning day.”
Excerpt:
RICHMOND, Va. – There were no jolly Christmas carols at the Cannon Memorial Chapel. No brilliant poinsettias or festive branches of holly. No smiling faces or hearty wishes of happiness.
Instead, melancholy piano music echoed through the hushed church. Dead branches were lain on a table covered in blue cloth, representing the “winter of our souls.” Men and women held each other and cried. […]
Somber Blue Christmas services are being held at many churches around the country this year, in recognition of what psychologists have long known: that the contrived good cheer of the holiday season can actually make some people who are dealing with heartbreak feel worse. The Blue Christmas services confront feelings of grief and loss head-on. […]
This is the first Christmas in a long time that 77-year-old Charles Minter Jr. will have to celebrate without Barbara, whom he married 19 days after they met and stayed with for “57 years, four months and three days.” In May, she succumbed to cancer.
“I hate the holidays. I see the lights and Christmas — I just get the chills,” he said. “I hope this is going to help.” […]
Christine Moll, a mental health counselor in Buffalo, N.Y., who has helped two churches develop holiday programs for depressed parishioners, said that all the holiday cheer can make people dealing with death, divorce or family dysfunction feel more out of place, and more miserable.
“All the glitz, the tinsel, and what have you, the decorations, conjure up that we all need to be having some sort of Norman Rockwell experience,” she said.
The Rev. Emily Richards, pastor of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Ridgefield, Conn., said there has been a huge response to her church’s first Blue Christmas service. […]
Some churches refer to such programs as “Longest Night” services and hold them on the shortest day — and therefore, the longest night — of the year. This year, that falls on Thursday.
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