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We listened to Christmas music when we traveled to Omaha last week, and I hit the skip button when Blue Christmas came on. I didn’t want it to remind my mother this would be her first Christmas in more than 62 years without my dad. I didn’t want the song to make her feel bad.

When we took family pictures later, I posed everything except the group of our children and their spouses. I didn’t want to make our newly-divorced son stand out. As if by not taking the picture, I could erase the status.

But none of that works.

My mother loves Christmas. She is enjoying every minute of the build-up. Yet, occassionally, Christmas will be blue for her this year. Very, very blue. And I cannot fix that by skipping a song on the radio.

My son is making new traditions with his chidren. Good traditions. Single-dad traditions full of new memories. But some moments will be hard and sad and broken. I can’t fix that by skipping the awkard photos.

Walking through a gift shop today, I saw a bright, winter cardinal ornament. I almost reached for it as the perfect gift for my mother-in-law’s December birthday. Then, I remembered she isn’t here anymore. I reminded myself she doesn’t need a bauble with all the glories of Heaven. But, let’s be real. Even with the comfort of Heaven, for a moment, I was the deep kind of sad nothing on earth can fix.

I am so grateful that I’m not limited to earth stuff, though. If I were, I think, like the psalmist said, “I would have despaired.” I don’t know how the Creater of the Universe is going to fix all the brokenness in our world. I only know this: Blue is a color of Christmas, too.

It comes in seasons, sometimes in waves. If you are experiencing it now, Dear Reader, I pray it has not come to stay. And that somehow, somewhere, the other colors will break through. The silver bells, the Rudolph reds, the ever-greens. The glorious golds that remind us of streets we will walk upon some day.

I pray that whatever is making you blue today will eventually give way to everything that is merry and bright.