Singing Carols Softly

The last Christmas I spent with my dad we played fuzzball together. My parents had very graciously bought me a table for Christmas and my dad, brother, and I put it together – which means they put it together and I held onto screws.  After it was assembled we played games all afternoon. Every Christmas since then I think about that table.

I, like many others, have often found Christmas a wonderful and yet difficult time of the year. The holiday season is not always so “holly, jolly” for those who see empty seats at the dinner table, and missing stockings on the chimney. Christmas can be hard, even for believers, when it is accompanied with reminders that loved ones are gone. We should not shy away from the expression of this grief, even during the holidays. It’s okay to sing carols softly this Christmas.

The song “Snow” by Sleeping At Last resonates so profoundly with me every Christmas. I don’t know why I keep listening to it. I weep every time it plays on my iPod. I sometimes just put it on repeat and listen to it over and over. I am okay with those tears. It’s right and good to remind myself to grieve around the holiday. The lyrics speak of finding ways to believe in the truth of Christmas despite the aches we feel from life in this fallen world. The melodic voice of Ryan O’Neal calls out:

Our families huddle closely
Betting warmth against the cold
But our bruises seem to surface
Like mud beneath the snow

So we sing carols softly, as sweet as we know
A prayer that our burdens will lift as we go
Like young love still waiting under mistletoe
We’ll welcome December with tireless hope

Several themes emerge from the song that remind me both that it’s okay to grieve this Christmas and that this grief will not define me. It’s valuable to take a look at some of these themes.

The song commends to us a level of honesty not common enough during the Holiday Season. Despite what all the songs and Christmas specials on television tell us, the holiday season does not make everything right with the world. The falling snow looks pretty, but it merely hides the decaying branches underneath it. Once the snow is gone we will be reminded of the cold death of winter. Some of us treat the holiday like this too. We white wash our lives, our worlds, our families with Christmas cheer and pretend like everything is okay. But Christmas, as wonderful as it is, does not remove the aches, hurts, and “bruises” that hide underneath our celebrations. “Snow” encourages us to acknowledge these difficulties. Our bruises do surface, but when they do it’s okay to acknowledge them. Elsewhere in the song O’Neal sings about the table being set, but acknowledges that some “pieces go missing.”

This Christmas, like the several before it, will feature one less plate on the table. There will be one less stocking hung above the fire place, and no one will play fuzzball in our house. I miss my dad especially during the holidays, and sometimes I still weep. It’s okay to grieve, even at Christmas.

The song also reminds us of the immeasurable value of community. One of the amazing things about deep sorrow is that we never experience them alone. When I think about my father’s death I think about clutching my kid brother in the back of a van and weeping uncontrollably with him. The connection we had in that moment can’t really be communicated, and it can’t be relived, but it can be remembered. That memory creates an even deeper bond between us. It’s like the bond I experienced with my wife when we handed our two-year old over to doctors for spinal surgery. Deep sorrow creates deep bonds. The chorus repeats what has to be some of the most moving lyrics in the whole song:

Like the petals in our pockets
May we remember who we are
Unconditionally cared for
By those who share our broken hearts

We are “unconditionally cared for by those who share our broken hearts.” The sharing of a broken heart can create a deep and abiding love. It’s the kind of community that one needs to survive deep grief; it’s the kind of community one needs to survive the holidays.

This Christmas I won’t be alone. I will rejoice with my family. My sister will fly in, my brother and I will meet up with her at our mom’s house. All our families will cram together to love each other. To laugh and remember. To share burdens, joys, and good wine. We’ll talk about the future, we’ll cherish the past. We will love each other like broken-hearts do. It is okay to grieve, but don’t grieve alone.

Finally, the song encourages me to believe in “tireless hope.” That’s really what Christmas is all about: hope. Christmas reminds us to believe in a new creation, a new kingdom. N.T. Wright captures this reality so beautifully when he writes:

 The virginal conception speaks powerfully of new creation, something fresh happening within the old world, beyond the reach and dreams of the possibilities we currently know. And if we believe that the God we’re talking about is the creator of the world, who longs to rescue the world from its corruption and decay, then an act of real new creation, anticipating in fact the great moment of Easter itself, might just be what we should expect, however tremblingly, if and when this God decides to act to bring this new creation about. The ordinary means of procreation is one of the ways, deep down, in which we laugh in the face of death. Mary’s conception of Jesus has no need of that manoeuvre. “In him was life, and the life was the light of all people.” The real objection to the virginal conception is not primarily scientific. It is deeper than that. It is the notion that a new world really might be starting up within the midst of the old, leaving us with the stark choice of birth or death; leaving us, like the Magi, no longer at ease: leaving us, in other words, as Christmas people faced with the Herods of the world. (Quoted in Michael Bird, Evangelical Theology, 372)

To be Christmas people is to believe in the in-breaking of God’s Kingdom despite the sorrow we feel now. “Snow” speaks of tireless hope as the belief that we can still celebrate this season even in face of loss and sorrow. O’Neal sings:

The table is set and our glasses are full
Though pieces go missing, may we still feel whole
We’ll build new traditions in place of the old
’cause life without revision will silence our souls

Life is full of meetings and partings; sometimes there are changes and revisions to the story we had in mind. We can keep building, keep creating, keep revising because Christmas is true. The song concludes beautifully with this reminder:

As gentle as feathers, the snow piles high
Our world gets rewritten and retraced every time
Like fresh plates and clean slates, our future is white
New year’s resolutions will reset tonight

It doesn’t always feel like it, especially around the holiday, but Christmas promises us a brighter future.

It’s not always easy to believe in hope. So, sometimes we may sing carols softly – praying them more than singing them – and that is okay. You can grieve this Christmas. As you grieve, let this song “Snow” help you do so in healthy ways.