The winter solstice brings with it the year’s longest stretch of darkness. It arrives in conjunction with all the stress of the holidays.
With that in mind, Rev. Anne Gajerski-Cauley is preparing for a Longest Night Service – commonly known as the Blue Christmas Service – at the Bloomingdale United Church on December 21.
Arguably the busiest time of the year for many, the Christmas season can turn from a joyous celebration into a busy and stressful experience. For others, the season can amplify a sense of loneliness and of loss when there are so many expectations to feel only joy, she notes.
The Longest Night Service, therefore, aims to help participants let go of the stresses of the season, finding some peace amid the chaos. New to the area, having just started at Bloomingdale United at Easter, Gajerski-Cauley is eager to introduce the service into the church’s offerings.
“Christmastime is just a really stressful time for a lot of people and traditionally Longest Night Services or Blue Christmas Services have been done for people that are facing losses or have lost somebody in the last year – often a death or job loss or other events that are really hard to deal with,” she explained. “And hard to deal with, especially around Christmas cheer because there are such expectations that it’s supposed to be a really happy, joyful time of the year – for a lot of people, it’s not. For a lot of people, it’s very stressful.
“I wanted to do this service to give a different kind of feeling and a different kind of tone for people that want and need to have their feelings acknowledged, that they don’t necessarily feel joyful when everybody else is having a good time,” she explained.
The Longest Night Service is her favourite service of the season, helping people to take a break from the stresses of life. While the focus is to aid in the process of healing during the Christmas season, Gajerski-Cauley says it is for anyone who really needs to unload stress and work on healing for any reason.
“I have never had a loss around Christmastime where I have felt that I am mourning, but it’s the stress of the season, really,” she said.
“It is a time to just have an hour in that month where it is really unpacked and it is calming and tranquil and restful so that is why I want to convey that to the public that you don’t have to necessarily experience a major loss at this time of year to come to this, it’s just a quiet reflective tranquil hour in this season to kind of unpack,” she said of the service. “I think it is sort of a spiritual massage.”
The service will begin around 7 p.m. and run roughly for an hour.
“There will be some scripture reading, some hymns, carols and there will be some silence, prayers, candle-lighting. So we are going to give people the opportunity to come and light a candle in memory of someone they are thinking about so that will be part of the service as well,” she explained of the agenda.
The service is open for all to join.
“Anybody, anybody is welcome to come. Especially, I want to encourage anyone who just feels they need an hour of peace, an hour of calm and tranquility in this time of year,” she said, noting there is no preparation or things needed to attend. “They can just come as they are.”
