Christmas is a special time for many.
But for others struggling to cope it could be anything but festive.
Now Dunfermline Abbey is throwing open its doors for an Advent service with a difference this Sunday.
Those who have experienced bereavement and are struggling with illness, money worries and relationships are among those invited to attend the Blue Christmas service.
Minister the Rev MaryAnn Rennie said: “Blue is sometimes the colour of Advent, but it’s also the name of an Elvis Presley Song.
“Our service doesn’t just focus on the bereaved but on those who feel out of sorts with the season for personal reasons.
“The run up to Christmas can have people struggling for all kinds of reasons — break up of and struggling with relationships, money worries, unemployment, frustration at commercialism.
“In all the churches I’ve been minister of they have been part of the Advent activity, and I know that selfishly they responded to personal need in 1998 when someone close to my husband Keith and I died in the weeks before Christmas.
“In the midst of the parties and carols it was hard to find time to allow grief to be normal.”
Mrs Rennie said that when she came to Dunfermline Abbey it wasn’t high up on the list of things which needed to be introduced, but, she added, in the weeks before her second Christmas from the pulpit she could see the struggle of some members on a weekly basis after a year of some difficult deaths.
“So it seemed a good way to allow those people a place for their grief to be allowed space and acknowledged,” she explained.
“We forget that grief and frustration are as much part of the Christmas story as joy and celebration.
“But it is the season of all emotions and the Christ child enters the world taking part in the full breadth of human experience.”
In the service, at 4pm on Sunday, candles are lit to remember “the gamut of our emotions and loss experiences, not just bereavement”.
“We ensure though that there is a space to reflect the deaths from this year, and individual candles are also lit as we remember in specific memory,” Mrs Rennie said.
“Members of the congregation are also invited to light their own candles.”
She said the service means people do not feel alone with their feelings.
“I often worry when people leave crying, but I am assured by those who have met me afterwards who say that they find it a space of comfort and hope, and assurance that God meets them in the emotions that they are experiencing,” Mrs Rennie added.
