Had a blue year? Celebrate a blue Christmas

Feeling a bit blah this festive season, a bit out of sorts?

Well you’re not alone, according to Cowes Uniting Church’s Reverend Ian Turnnidge.

“There was an item on the news today explaining people are feeling less excited about Christmas this year partly because of the fatigue of the past two years and partly because there’s still a sense of the unknown, that plans could change quickly,” says Ian, who has a global following thanks to his online sermons during lockdown. It’s not hopelessness, but a kind of blah, a particular kind of grief hard to put into words.”

So Ian is this year holding a Blue Christmas on Tuesday, December 21, 7.30pm to 8.30pm at the church, where anyone can drop in.

“A Blue Christmas is not a new thing. Congregations and communities have offered them at various times after they’ve experienced trauma or a particularly difficult year such as fire,” he says “This year we are offering that to the community because people may not have been able to go to funerals, or they’ve been separated from family or felt isolated.”

There will be no formal service for Blue Christmas, but instead attendees can light a candle or take part in poetry, prayer, listen to reflective music or write on a card the names of people missing from their life.

Ian says Christmas in general, pre-Covid, could be an overwhelming time for people.

“Now everyone is looking forward to their families getting together but the same issues that drove people crazy before will still be there.

“We shouldn’t underestimate the complexity of Christmas time in the family dynamic and especially this year we might find ourselves unexpectedly exhausted. A Blue Christmas is about making space for that. It’s come as you are and stay as long as you like.”

For those who love a festive singalong, he says the Uniting Church will be holding carols on Christmas Eve from 7pm, while other congregations will also be holding carols, with vaccination certificates to be shown on arrival.

“So while there may not be a public carol event on the island, people can go to church.”

World-wide following

Ian says all the local churches – including the Baptists, the Anglicans and the two-year-old Surf Church (formed by the CYC) – have run online services through Zoom, Youtube or Facebook over the past two years, with many continuing to offer the option.

Ian, who is in his sixth year with St John’s, says he was surprised how his regular 30-minute Sunday Facebook online meeting attracted more than 200 weekly views, including from around the world.

“One of our congregation has a sister who lives in the Netherlands so they would watch, but we have also had people from Ireland watching and we don’t know who they are, as well as England and Vienna,” says Ian, who now runs both online Sunday services, as well as a church service.

"Normally on a Sunday we’d get about 50 in the congregation, but online became very popular, including keeping in contact with holiday makers. We even had a congregation in Western Australia who tuned in. We include them in the welcome and at one time we were coming out of lockdown as England was going back into it and we’d mutually support each other.”

He says all local churches’ online services were viewed at all the local nursing homes, especially important as residents were in absolute lockdown, unable to see family or outsiders.

Ian films the online service in his lounge room, with a stuffed echidna, wombat and even Elmo the Muppet making various appearances. “In lockdown we were all told to stay home so I filmed it at home. It wouldn’t have been fair to say I’ve got the key to the church but only I can go in and you can’t.”

Because of this, the subject of the services changed to suit the times, with biblical pestilence and plague taking on whole new meanings.

“We never take community for granted, but it has given us a greater appreciation of community, for those incidental chats in the car park, or bumping into someone having a coffee. You don’t have to be religious to have a sense that life lacks something when we’re disconnected.

“This has been the first world-wide pandemic of this generation – with the exception of HIV in the ‘80s – and I think the message is however we’re each individually travelling, we are all in it together.”