Ten ways to support grieving families at Christmas

BY SIMPLY ACKNOWLEDGING THAT CHRISTMAS can be a difficult time, bereaved families can be reminded that their church cares. These ideas, offered by busy clergy, are simple but focused. Try one or more of the suggestions below:

1. Consider hosting a ‘Longest Night’ service for those who are recently bereaved. It’s a way to acknowledge sadness, but meeting it with hope.
2. Send a Christmas card to all those whose family funerals you have done in the last 1- 3 years. Include details of your usual Christmas services, but also of any particular remembrance/memorial events you are putting on. If a jolly card doesn’t seem quite right, send a ‘thinking of you’ card instead. The CPO website offers a selection.
3. Be aware of other helpful services that might be happening locally – many hospices host a ‘Light up a Life’ service in the lead up to Christmas at one of the local churches. Even if it’s not at your church, your contacts might find it helpful.
4. Call someone who may need a ‘how are you’ conversation at this particularly difficult time of year.
5. Choose an evening during the week before Christmas to have the church open specifically for people to come in and remember a loved one by lighting a candle, or arrange to have the church open over a period of time for this purpose. For some people this will be more accessible than attending a particular event.
6. If you know of families who can’t make it to church, you could direct them to the Light-a-candle feature on the Church of England website.
7. It can be helpful to invite bereaved people to events that bring the community together, such as fetes, to help them keep in contact with others. This may be especially the case for people who live on their own.
8. Could you liaise with your local crematorium/cemetery/woodland burial park and offer a brief service there before Christmas? Sometimes they are easier spaces for people to manage than a church and they may be very open to working together.
9. If your church runs a bereavement support group, you may like to highlight their work more widely in December.
10. One of the things that bereaved people often feel more than anyone is that nobody acknowledges their loved one any more: people are frightened to speak of them. Perhaps your congregation can get involved by thinking of those they know who are bereaved and sending a personal memento in memory of the loved one at Christmas – a miniature framed photo, or a small gift that represents something significant about the person who died.