“I’ll have a blue Christmas without you; I’ll be so blue just thinking about you.” Elvis Presley

“All night long I drench my bed in tears.” David in Psalm 6

What color do you most connect with Christmas? Green? Red? White?

What about Bue?  Blue is the color of Hanukkah, which started this past week.  But it is also the color that represents sorrow, heartache, depression.

I wonder what Elvis was going through in his life when he wrote the song.  Was it after the death of his mother, with whom he was so close?  Maybe.  Or maybe something else.  

There wasn’t such a thing as Christmas or Hanukkah when David wrote the Psalm, but if there had been he certainly would’ve connected it with his blue feelings.

How’s your Christmas shaping up?  Yes, this time of year can be “merry and bright”, but it can also be sad and depressing.  Christmas doesn’t insulate us from the tragic life events that make us feel as if we’ve broken through ice and have been plunged underwater and are drowning.  Nor does it automatically erase the memories of the past life losses that hurt so bad when they happened, and still cause us to grieve.  Like Clark Griswold watching old family movies on his 8mm projector in the attic, so too we replay in our mind’s eye all those previous occasions, some happy and others not so, that still cause us to feel deeply.

What memories of blue Christmases do you replay, recall, remember?

Three immediately come to mind for me; Christmas 1986, 2009, and 2014.  Each are connected with a different kind of death.

My dad died in November of 1986.  It was sudden.  I was living in Del Rio, TX., doing my year of vicarage.  Mom and dad had been planning on coming down and spending Thanksgiving.  One night he wasn’t feeling well.  He thought he had heartburn.  Actually, what he had was an aortic aneurism.  He was rushed into surgery, which he survived.  And then he died a short time later.  I remember his funeral.  And then going home for Christmas and descending downstairs into the basement where the wood burning stove used to heat the house was located.  It was dad’s custom to stoke the fire early every morning.  When I smelled the stale smoke it reminded me of him.  And I was blue for a long time after he died.

2009 was the first Christmas after my divorce.  The days leading up to Christmas were difficult, I took little joy in decorating the house or “doing church.”  Christmas day was especially difficult.  It had always been so joyful for our family.  But on that Christmas, I had to “share” three of my daughters with my ex-wife.  So we spent the morning together, had our Christmas dinner, and then they left.  The rest of Christmas day felt very strange.  And I was blue.

2014 was the last Christmas I was a pastor in the Lutheran church.  My mood was reflecting the season:  dark.  I knew my ministry was coming to end and I wanted nothing more to do with the church.  And so I just did my best to muddle through the many services scheduled.  Rather than being happy to celebrate the season, I was relieved when it was finally over.  I was blue. 

What about you?  What blue Christmas’s do you recall?  Are you having one this year?  It would be easy and tempting to “therapeutize” this theme and give suggestions or ideas on how to “deal” with it.  But sometimes we have to simply go through it.  Like David, what’s required is a good cry, a capable therapist, and maybe a glass or two of mulled wine. 

For me there is a silver lining found in the midst of this blue-ness; and it is simply that it allows me not only to remember, but to feel.  And also to reach out to someone who is close who will listen—that could be a close friend or The Christ. 

Dad used to say, “Misery loves company.”  Maybe.  I think being in good company helps the misery.  If you are blue, dear reader, I would invite you to reach out to someone to be with you.  And if you feel as if you have no one, please reach out to me.

“When those blue snowflakes start falling,

That’s when those blue memories start calling,

You’ll be doing all right

With your Christmas of white,But I’ll have a blue, blue, blue, blue Christmas.”