Blue Christmas

Christmas can be a painful time for some.

Maybe it’s the first Christmas without a loved one.
Maybe it’s the first Christmas someone is experiencing a personal trauma like dealing with recent separation or divorce, struggling to find employment, facing depression or family crisis.

Blue Christmas is the idea that for someone this season of Christmas is blue, where someone or something was lost and Christmas isn’t joyful and just isn’t the same.

We have to realise sometimes during a Christmas season, celebrations bring up this feeling of blue. The anguish of the death of a loved one or a personal trauma can make people feel alone in the midst of the Christmas celebrations and joy.

So who are people in your circles that experienced losing someone or something robbing them of their livelihood?

Christmas is a time about getting together with family and friends, being with people even though the year has been good, bad and ugly. That’s why we turn up to Christmas dinners even when we don’t want to.

Who are people in your circles facing a blue christmas?

Grab a coffee with them.
Put the tree with them.
Wrap presents with them.
Invite them over for a meal.
Do Christmas with them.

Reach out with people who are experiencing a blue Christmas.

This is actually what Christmas is about, coming together despite the year being good, bad or ugly. We need to be with them in this Christmas season especially when it is blue.

And for those experiencing a Blue Christmas this year.
Below is a quote by Anne Lamott which I have held onto during a Blue Christmas

“You will lose someone you can’t live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.”

I’m a person who is learning to dance with a limp now.

During this Blue Christmas.
Let’s be people who care and pick up the phone.