Christmas Blues

As a pastor, I've become increasingly aware that the Christmas season isn't a time of joy for everyone. Cries of "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays" and upbeat carols can't always overcome feelings of sadness, isolation or grieving. This is especially true if we have suffered the loss of a loved one around Christmas time.

The cultural myth we labor under is that "everyone else is having a great time at Christmas." This can heighten feelings of sadness and isolation. Yet, for many, Christmas is a stressful time of shopping and card sending deadlines. Holiday gatherings with family members can be difficult and challenging. W.H. Auden admitted in his poem, For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio, to "Having tried, quiet unsuccessfully, to love all of my relatives..."

Also, there are those who feel depressed during the darker and colder months of winter. Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is a documented psychological disorder. That's why most "Blue Christmas" services take place on the Winter solstice, the longest night of the year.

So tonight, I'm participating in a Blue Christmas service. This is a service of solace and comfort for those who find the Christmas season difficult or depressing because they are grieving for a loss or feel alone and isolated. This service acknowledges that Christmas can be a difficult time and offers hope to the disconsolate and grieving.

For those of us who are having a merry Christmas, let's not forgot those who aren't. Christmas can be a time of reaching out to those who need a word of comfort and solace.

Those Post-Christmas Blues

Christmas is quickly becoming a fading memory. If Christmas was a high moment for you, either spiritually or materially or both, feeling a letdown is natural. For some, the holiday period from Christmas through New Year's is a depressing time anyway.

For me the poet W.H. Auden captures the essence of the time after Christmas in his poem, "For the Time Being":

The Christmas Feast is already a fading memory.
And already the mind begins to be vaguely aware
Of an unpleasant whiff of apprehension at the thought
of Lent and Good Friday, which cannot, after all, now
Be very far off. But, for the time being, here we all are,
Back in the moderate Aristotelian city
Of darning and the Eight-Fifteen, where Euclid's geometry
And Newton's mechanics would account for our experience.
And the kitchen table exists because I scrub it.
It seems to have shrunk during the holidays. The streets
Are much narrower than we remembered; we had forgotten
The office was as depressing as this. To those who have seen
The Child, however dimly, however incredulously,
The Time Being is, in a sense, the most trying time of all.

My question is: Does the return to our usual routine of work and chores need to be depressing? I think there is something positive and even comforting in returning to "normal" life. Can we enjoy the celebration of Christmas without it making everyday life seem dull and boring by comparison?

I believe we don't have to give in to the post-Christmas blues. How? By recognizing that life will always have its high moments and its low moments. Life will always be a mixture of joy and sadness and everything in between. Life is not lived mostly on mountaintops or in valleys, but on the everyday plains.

There is so much to affirm and enjoy about the routines of everyday life. It is here and now, on the Monday after Christmas, that the meaning and purpose of life can be found.

A Christmas Prayer

For me, the light Jesus brought into the world is a universal Light. I like the "stained glass" metaphor for the relation between the world's religions. There is a single light shining through a stained glass window, but it gets refracted into different sizes, shapes and colors.

Christians find their Truth in the Light of Christ, but this same Light can be found in the Buddha, Lao Tze, Confucius, Abraham, Muhammad and many other spiritual leaders throughout history.

Here is a prayer from the United Methodist Book of Worship by John Sutter that captures this Light imagery.

Send, O God, into the darkness of this troubled world,
the light of your Son.
Let the star of your hope touch the minds of all people
with the bright beams of mercy and truth;
and so direct our steps that we may ever walk in the
way revealed to us,
as the shepherds of Bethlehem walked with joy
to the manger where he dwelled,
who now and ever reigns in our hearts,
Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.