Blue Christmas church services are popping up throughout Wyoming for people who aren’t spewing joy between Thanksgiving and New Year’s.
The Rev. Jessica Boyce, founder of Whole Soul Consulting, is leading a “Blue Christmas” church service at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the First United Methodist Church of Casper. It’s for anyone who’s lost a loved one, weathered a divorce or relationship lost, or is struggling with some other source of grief that makes the hyper stimuli of Christmas joy all around difficult to endure.
The concept of a subdued, contemplative Christmas service for people in phases of profound grief has been around for a while: at least a decade, said Boyce. She first saw the need for it in 2010.
“I had to do a service after Thanksgiving for this little girl who died tragically,” said Boyce. “Seeing how her father was just so dreading the holidays – I knew that if he needed this, there were others that would need this as well.”
At that funeral, Boyce let the children gather and blow bubbles, in remembrance of their friend. It was somber, but beautiful, she recalled.
That’s how she aims to make her Blue Christmas services.
If there’s anything like an epiphany at these low-pressure, open-to-all services, it’s been the realization that keeping up appearances can be as heavy as grief itself, said Boyce.
“People feel the need to hide their grief and hide their struggles during the holidays,” she said. “(We face) this expectation to be happy and joyful, and just how exhausting it is.”
There are already deep elements of grief, shame and sadness in the familiar Biblical account of the first Christmas, Boyce noted.
Mary and Joseph weathered a long and difficult journey to Bethlehem to be counted in the census, as she carried her first child. Joseph faced down doubts about how to handle what others saw as Mary’s infidelity. Mary’s home community inevitably stigmatized her over her pregnancy.
“The Christmas story isn’t just joyful,” said Boyce. “It’s got this wide range of emotions, (and they’re all) working towards hope and working towards joy – but it is a process. And we can identify with these different characters in the story on these different levels.”
The Bells
Rev. Douglas Sunderland, of the Christ Episcopal Church in Cody Wyoming, is leading a Blue Christmas service on Dec. 19 at 5:30 p.m. It’s a subdued candlelight service followed by a light soup dinner, which has been happening for about 15 years running now.
The church schedules it close to the winter solstice on purpose to shine more light into the darkest day of the year. There’s some singing at that service too: the minor-key “O Little Town of Bethlehem” – and the plaintive “I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day.”
The latter carol is based on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s 1863 poem “Christmas Bells,” which he wrote after his wife died when her dress caught fire in a fluke accident, and his son was injured in the Civil War.
“How inexpressibly sad are all holidays," wrote Longfellow after his wife’s death. "I can make no record of these days. Better leave them wrapped in silence. Perhaps someday God will give me peace."
Sunderland said she, too, emphasizes some of the heavy elements of the Bible’s Christmas account, such as King Herod’s massacre of all the baby boys in the region of Bethlehem, just after Jesus’ family escaped toward Egypt.
Yet, said Sunderland, “There’s always some hope in every Blue Christmas service no matter what our theme is.”
In A Graveyard
St. John’s Episcopal Church of Jackson Hole is hosting a Blue Christmas service Dec. 12 at 6 p.m.
Bethesda Worship Center in Casper is hosting a “gone but not forgotten” service at 6:30 p.m. Dec. 18.
“We show pictures, read names and (light) candles for those that we’ve lost through the years,” Pastor Scott Lee told Cowboy State Daily in a Monday text message. “We honor their memory and offer a place of healing for those that are hurting.”
And in Cheyenne, Lakeview Cemetery hosted its 31st annual Christmas Box Angel Vigil on Friday – a candlelight service for those grieving the loss of a loved one.
That went well this year, organizer Spencer Straub told Cowboy State Daily.
“You don’t know how you’re going to affect people, but it’s something that needs to be out there for people,” said Straub, adding that about 42 people came to the cemetery service.
Cowboy State Daily intern Hunter McDaniel contributed to this report.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
