Blue Christmas Ideas

People have undergone unprecedented loss this year. Family and friends have succumbed to death in this pandemic, millions have lost economic security through loss of jobs, some have lost businesses they built over a lifetime. Most of us have lost our beloved rhythms of life that felt familiar and gave our lives the richness of gatherings and adventure. And we can name so many losses related to hatred and violence.

Throughout Advent we have proclaimed hope, love, joy, and peace in the midst of difficulty. This is the church’s gift to the world–that our faith story is grounded in the presence of God that came and dwelt among us in the midst of hardship. But on the “longest night”–the Winter Solstice–it has become a tradition among some churches to hold a “Blue Christmas” or “Longest Night” service to acknowledge and remember those we have lost. It is important to name that sometimes hope, love, joy, and peace are distant feelings when we have encountered so much loss. The anticipation of renewed grief as Christmas Eve approaches can be difficult to bear for many. Ritual helps us move through these feelings and funnel our heartbreak in ways that, while not alleviating it totally, gives space for a tangible remembering. This will be especially important in 2020 because we often were not able to gather and ritualize our loss in the ways we usually do.

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Consider a “blue Christmas tree” outside the church

Consider setting up a tree outside your church with all blue lights. On the longest night, you could invite people to come and safely gather (distanced and masked) around the tree for a brief ritual of lighting candles and laying luminaries, perhaps with blue lights in them, at the foot of the tree with the names of people in your community who have died this year, but also words and phrases of other laments: loss of jobs, livelihoods, civility, well-being.

You will have to decide what works best for your context–inviting people to let you know ahead of time the names to put on luminaries, or ask people to bring luminaries of their own, or have “stewards”

ready to write names on luminaries as people come and tell them what they want written on the luminaries (usually, we would suggest a station for people to write on luminaries themselves, but it is best to keep the “touching” to a minimum during pandemic).

You might also consider gathering items under the tree to take to area hospitals to honor those who have worked so hard to prevent death but have also seen so much death this year. Contact your local hospital to find out what items would be appreciated by nurses, doctors, aides, and staff. Or you may decide to invite people to bring food items for donation to your local food bank. Do whatever feels right for your community–even inviting the wider community beyond your church members to contribute. The point is that when we extend ourselves in action toward alleviating suffering, we help to alleviate our own suffering souls.

You could use Facebook Live (or other entity) to stream this outdoor gathering to those who cannot be present. And/or you could supplement this outdoor gathering with an online ritual. Many churches use four blue candles and one white candle for a candle-lighting ritual along with prayers. Various liturgies highlight different “topics” for each candle, for instance: those we have lost; the pain of loss; our burdens; our faith, or grief, courage, memories, love. Then the white candle represents the presence of Christ in the midst of all of this. For this year (2020), I have written this brief ritual to recognize the various losses unique to this time. All responses are “repeat-after-me” responses to facilitate easy participation without need for distributing paper or projecting words (although you certainly could if you had the technology — see THIS story of projections on the outside of churches). As always, please adapt to fit your context more closely and use one or multiple readers as you so choose.

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A Litany for Losses

On this shortest day of the year, and as we head into the longest night, we gather, mindful of the losses that have multiplied throughout the year.

As we look back at it all at once, we are in danger of being overwhelmed by its tragedies– sickness, violence, fire, hurricane, earthquake, and more.

Our aim tonight is to acknowledge this, to mourn this,

and to know that in all of this, there is the possibility of more light.

If we are to be overwhelmed, let it be that we are overwhelmed with the assurance that we are not alone.

We are able to do this because the longest night is the birth canal for ever-more-light as the days now lengthen and we wait for the springtime of new life.

Some of our earliest evidence is that our ancient ancestors saw this night and the dawn of tomorrow as the appropriate time to honor their lost loved ones.

It was this moment that symbolized most powerfully that the path to everlasting life is filled with the light of a new and growing dawn.

Psalm 36:9 says, “Within You is the spring of life; in your light, we see light.”

As we light up this tree, though its light is as blue as many of us feel, the light is still there.

When we feel as if our light is dimmed, we can rely on the Holy Light to continue to shine

until we ourselves shine bright once more.

We are not alone.

[if you are including a moment of lighting the tree, do it at this moment]

Please join me in a Litany of Losses. Your lines will be prompted.

Loss of Life

We mourn this night the loss of life. [light the first candle]

For so many, the pandemic has taken loved ones. We mourn the loss of those close to us and those whose names we do not know.

We mourn those who perished while working to save other lives. We mourn those who died, not of pandemic, but of other causes.

And we mourn the loss, in many cases, of our ability to be with them as they passed, our loss of gathering together for comfort in the ways we needed so much.

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I invite you to repeat after me:

We mourn this loss of life. We mourn this loss of life.

We honor and remember these beloveds. We honor and remember these beloveds.

We pray for comfort and peace. We pray for comfort and peace.

Amen. Amen.

Loss of Livelihood

We mourn this night the loss of livelihoods. [light the second candle]

For so many, the pandemic has taken the security of food, shelter, care for families, and medical care.

We mourn the loss of businesses that could not withstand the circumstances. These were not just businesses, but dreams born of passion and hard work.

We mourn those who find themselves needing to rely on others for help when what they really want to do is to be able to help others.

I invite you to repeat after me:

We mourn this loss of livelihood. We mourn this loss of livelihood.

We honor and remember the dreams now deferred. We honor and remember the dreams now deferred.

We pray for sustenance and resilience. We pray for sustenance and resilience.

Amen. Amen.

Loss of Love

We mourn this night the loss of love. [light the third candle]

Our society’s dilemma, centuries in the making, has created such hatred, suffering, oppression, and ill-will.

We mourn the loss of those whose lives were lost to brutality and violence. We mourn the loss of our ability to love one another despite our differences,

as beings who deserve to be seen for their inherent beauty and worth. We mourn that black and brown peoples have perished

and suffered at the greatest proportion in the pandemic of coronavirus.

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We mourn the pandemic of racism that still plagues the fabric of our communities.

I invite you to repeat after me:

We mourn this loss of love. We mourn this loss of love.

We honor and remember the work of prophets who proclaim justice. We honor and remember the work of prophets who proclaim justice.

We pray for compassion and change. We pray for compassion and change.

Amen. Amen.

Loss of Liveliness

We mourn this night the loss of liveliness. [light the fourth candle]

For so many, this year has robbed us of our energy, our enthusiasm, and our sense of well-being. We mourn teachers and leaders and caregivers and workers

who are struggling to help those in their care, themselves exhausted and needing the sustenance they give to others.

We mourn the loss of of all who are suffering with anxiety and depression, who are finding it difficult to live each day with fullness or to find hope for tomorrow.

We mourn those we have lost to suicide. We mourn those who find themselves addicted to substances

in order to ease the pain that feels unbearable. We mourn those who are experiencing their place of shelter

as an abusive place from which they struggle to escape.

I invite you to repeat after me:

We mourn this loss of liveliness. We mourn this loss of liveliness.

We honor and remember that each person is precious and whole. We honor and remember that each person is precious and whole.

We pray for recovery and renewed vigor. We pray for recovery and renewed vigor.

Amen. Amen.

More Light

And now we light a fifth candle. Just as we will do later this week on Christmas Eve,

We light this as a sign of our belief…

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We believe in the Light that has come and is coming. [light the fifth candle in the center]

This light casts its glow on all the surrounding prayers we have prayed. This light resides within us, perhaps dim for a time,

but always lit–an ember of the Holy inside us. This light reminds us that we are not alone.

[Invite people to whatever ritual action you have decided on… lighting their own candles, placing luminaries, offering food donations, etc.

This action can be accompanied by instrumental music or singers at a safe distance. Then you could close with a prayer.]

Worship Notes

Worship series design © Worship Design Studio by Marcia McFee. Used, adapted, and live-streamed with permission. www.worshipdesignstudio.com.

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This ritual is part of the Advent/Christmas series, “I Believe Even When… Fill the Night with Music and Light”

Find out more about utilizing the entire fully-scripted series at: www.worshipdesignstudio.com/believe

Click the image below to see the series trailer.

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