A Christmas story: Blessings during a season marked by loss

Christmas is a time of great joy for many, but for those who are grieving and experiencing the loss of a loved one, the season can have the opposite effect. Corleen McLean shares her experience and the blessing she and her family received from the Saskatoon Congregation in 1999.
By Corleen McLean, Pastor of the Saskatoon Congregation
I was fortunate to be born into a family that valued children, family togetherness, and doing things for others as a family. Growing up, we had one night a week that was family night. Our family night took many forms. Sometimes we would play a game or watch a movie together. Sometimes we would go to the park, play ball, or go skating or sledding in the winter. Sometimes we would complete a task or chore together. Sometimes we tried out new recipes, with everyone helping to cook our meal. The point was being and doing together.

My dad was a great combination of serious, with the ability to laugh and have fun (though he didn’t want to be too silly), while Mom could be a little more silly than serious.

As my brother, Jason, and I grew up and moved away from the family home, holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving became our new version of family night. We made the most of our time together on these holidays. Jason got married in October of 1998, and by then his wife, Darla, had been part of our family nights for a number of years.
Then came 1999. It started like any other year. At Easter, our family was together. Some of us were making plans to attend family camp at our church campground, Hills of Peace, in July. Mom and Dad were planning a holiday to British Columbia in August to visit Mom’s cousin and do some sightseeing.
Then, unexpectedly in mid-July, my dad, Gerry, got sick, went to the hospital, and died—all within 48 hours. He was 56.
We were devastated. We survived the months leading up to Christmas that year, doing our best to find joy in our new normal while working through the endless number of decisions and paperwork that come alongside a death. Thanksgiving came and went, and it was tough. Firsts are hard.
As Christmas approached, our joy as a family seemed to wane, and we started just going through the motions. Help with Christmas hampers: check. Help plan the Christmas Eve service: check. Half-hearted caroling with the congregation seemed to be the best we could do.
It was then that our congregation and extended family stepped in and provided much-needed care and attention to the McLeans. They didn’t try to deny our grief or help us get over it. They walked with us in that grief, supporting us with pop-in visits, invitations to homes, meals, and activities—while acknowledging that we probably wouldn’t be the best company, and that it was okay. This was such a blessing to us.
My mom’s sister and her family invited us to get out of town and join them for a few days at Christmas. They planned a crazy Olympics for all 12 of us to participate in, with events you’ve never heard of: upside-down Mario Kart racing, blindfolded fingernail painting, a create-a-stocking-cap contest, calf roping (using a little metal calf on wheels), and many more. Everyone had to participate—there was no sitting out.
We started out a little tentative, but before long we were full-on belly laughing. At one point, while watching my uncle try to paint my cousin’s fingernails while blindfolded, someone said, “This is so silly—Uncle Gerry would have hated this.”
The stories came quickly, one after the other. “Remember when Uncle Gerry played the donkey in the Christmas pageant? He wouldn’t go on stage, so the compromise was that he hid behind the organ holding one end of a rope. The lead actor held the other end, and Gerry tugged on it every so often and brayed once in a while, making the congregation laugh.”
“Remember when Jason made a shirt with a crazy patterned fabric in home economics class and brought it home, laying it on the table with a note for your dad asking him to pick a tie to go with it? Your dad wrote back that there wasn’t a tie in the whole world that would go with that shirt!”
“Remember when your dad said…?”
“Remember the time Uncle Gerry…?”
The laughter grew—healing laughter—and with it came the acknowledgement that things were different that year, but there was still joy to be experienced within the happy and sad moments.
The blessings my family received that Christmas in 1999 were many: gifts of compassion, time, presence, remembrance, shared joy in the face of adversity, and yes, even silliness.
This isn’t meant to be a sad story. It’s a life story. Life can be many things—messy, beautiful, happy, sad, scary, unexpected. Running through it all can be joy at different volumes—sometimes an undercurrent, sometimes a marching band. When our joy as a family seemed to wane, it was those around us who helped turn up that volume.
As we start our Advent journey, keep doing what you do, friends. Check in on your family, your friends, and your neighbours. You might rekindle someone’s joy and not even know it.

WATCH ON YOUTUBE