How Small Town America Saved My Christmas: Part 2
If you missed Part 1, check it out here - How Small Town America Saved My Christmas: Part 1
In 34 years, I have been lucky enough to have never experienced a “blue Christmas”. Blue Christmases are those that just don’t feel very festive. They might even feel sad. They’re common with people who have recently (or even not recently) lost a loved one or with someone battling a season of depression.
I’ve been fortunate to glide through life with only happy, blissful, Hallmark-worthy Christmas seasons…until last year.
After we had kids, my husband and I committed to always spending Christmas Day in our own home so that our kids could always have Christmas morning at home. (Which, by the way, sounded like a grand and noble plan when we lived in my hometown and were guaranteed to see my family for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.) But last year we moved across the country and away from my hometown and my family.
Last Christmas was different. We wouldn’t be seeing my family until after the holiday was over. There would be no Christmas Eve party with my family or my favorite Ukrainian and Polish food. There would be no turkey made by my mom on Christmas Day. There would be no binging on leftovers late into Christmas night.
This Christmas would be different than the 33 Christmases before. And it didn’t feel good.
Layered on top of missing my family, we had no traditions in our new town. There was nothing I could anchor our little family (or me, for that matter) to anticipate the holiday. Our normal Breakfast With Santa tradition was far away in Wisconsin. We wouldn’t run through our neighborhood on December 24th exchanging gifts with our neighbors like we had done before we moved. I couldn’t even find the right ingredients for my Ukrainian Christmas cookies.
So I went through December as a melancholy shell of a Mom, buying gifts, stuffing stockings, and decorating cookies, while never actually being excited for the season. I couldn’t even call my own Mom to ask her about their holiday plans for fear of breaking down in tears.
In a last-ditch effort about 10 days before Christmas, it came to me – I figured out what could redeem our holiday traditions. I thought of a tradition we could anchor on.
Christmas Eve church service.
For the record, I wholeheartedly believe you can celebrate the birth of Jesus in your own home during Christmas. You do not need to be in a church building to do that.
But I was raised on Catholic midnight mass and going to a church building on Christmas Eve just makes me reminiscent and festive. The candles, the singing of Silent Night, the driving past Christmas lights on your drive home – I love all of it. I was sure this would redeem my Christmas spirit.
Unfortunately, the little church we attended didn’t have any plans for a service on Christmas Eve. I’ve never been one for religious denominational divides, so I had no problem going elsewhere. I believe Jesus is Jesus is Jesus. And I believe different denominations spend 90% of their time arguing about the 5% of theology they disagree on instead of coming together on the 95% they do agree on.
So I asked my LDS (Latter Day Saint / Mormon) friends. Surely their church would have something, being the predominant religion in town. Nope. The Catholics? Nothing. Lutherans? Nada. Assembly of God? Uh-uh.
How could a town with SO MANY churches have nothing on Christmas Eve? Clearly this was a tradition held closely to Chicago Catholics and not rural Idahoans.
Then a sweet angel of a friend mentioned the local Presbyterian church in town having something. I made a couple of calls and she was right. At 7pm on Christmas Eve, the beautiful old stone church at the corner of our city park would hold the only Christmas Eve service in town.
I promptly informed my husband that we would be attending the service at this church we’ve never attended and would likely be one of the few families there.
And because he’s a smart husband (and he didn’t want to see me cry), he obliged.
On December 24th of the craziest year of our married lives, we ate dinner with my in-laws, put on our best Christmas church outfits, and headed out the door through the crunching snow to the cute stone church on the corner to witness something I never saw coming.
As we pulled up to the church, we could barely find a parking spot. And when we walked into the candle-lit church, we were lucky to find a seat. In a church that likely hosts no more than 20 people each Sunday, it was packed to the brim that night. People were squeezing into pews and others were quickly grabbing folding chairs from another room.
And I just sat taking it all in - the stained-glass windows, the Christmas tree in the corner, the woman playing the harp, the distinct smell of the pews from my childhood (yes, old church pews have a distinct smell).
As I looked around at the familiar faces in town that night, I saw everyone. I saw teachers, plant workers, ranchers, farmers, and retirees. I saw the Presbyterians, the Baptists, the Latter-Day Saints, the Catholics, the Lutherans…everyone. Maybe it was only 150 people, but it felt like everyone in town was there.
I finally broke that night. My eyes started to fill with tears as I sat in the pew of that old stone church, because on Christmas Eve in small town Idaho, Baby Jesus was Baby Jesus was Baby Jesus. There were no religious denominational lines that night. We all agreed that we were celebrating the birth of Jesus.
As one united community, we lit candles and we sang Silent Night. We hugged friends before we left church, wished our neighbors a Merry Christmas, and drove past all the lights on the way back home. We tucked the kids in tight and I laid in bed that night being reminded that while each man-made religious denomination might disagree on this thing or that thing, when it counts, we all show up for Jesus.
And that’s how Small Town America saved my blue Christmas.
