Preparing for the Holidays
Here we are, the beginning of November, staring down the holiday season and realizing nothing will be the same as the year comes to a close. I wish I could tell you that at least the holiday celebrations at Minneola will remain the same, but I cannot. Things have to change here as well, for the health and safety of our entire community. But, I want you to know it is okay to be sad, disappointed, grief stricken with what this pandemic has done to our traditions, plans, hopes and expectations. I know I am.
Yet…as we grieve, we also have the opportunity to breathe life, joy and love into this holiday season as we never have before. Not only for ourselves, but for those we love. Do not get me wrong, we do not have to be happy about this shift, but we have the ability to both grieve and make these holidays memorable…literally where we are.
This year we will not be joining Lands Lutheran Church for the traditional Thanksgiving Eve service, but I will be sharing their service details as they come to light later in the month. On the 29th of November we will be celebrating a special Service of Thanksgiving as we enter into the first Sunday of Advent. Throughout Advent we will be offering during our Wednesday Evening Prayer a Cross+Generational Zoom Advent Devotional time. Allowing us time each week to pause and consider God’s gift to this world through the baby Jesus Christ. Then for Christmas Eve, we will gather again on Zoom, gathered around our trees and alongside those who we will celebrate the birth of Christ with to worship right in our living room.
It will be sad, difficult and a great loss to not be able to worship in our sanctuary for Christmas Eve, but we will gather, we will sing, read the story of Jesus’ birth, light candles, pray and celebrate the coming of Christ that night so long ago. Zoom will allow us to see each other, or not, and remember that loud or quiet, busy or still, prepared or flying by the seat of our pants, God is with us and God makes our place, our space, our gathering sacred because God is there, right there with us. God’s Spirit dwells within us always.
It will not be the same, but it can be meaningful, beautiful and a holiday season that you will always remember because you celebrated it, all of it, right in the midst of the everyday, ordinary place of life; your home.
- Pr. Hannah
