Saturday, December 10 & Sunday, December 11 - All Music Sunday

with FUS Music Staff and Choirs

Saturday, December 10 @ 4:30 pm - ``Holiday Hymn Sing``
We will sing carols and hymns for Solstice, Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, and Winter both familiar and new, interspersed with history, stories, and reflections. We will even take some requests from the congregation!

Sunday, December 11 @ 9 & 11 am - ``Morning Star So Radiant” (Lessons & Carols)
Music and readings alternate as our five choirs, music staff, and guest instrumentalists help usher in the holiday season! This year's theme is ``Morning Star So Radiant.`` Music of Hamouris, Bolcom, Holst, Ebel-Sabo, Elgar, Willan, and more. Plus readings, congregational songs, and a few more surprises. Afterward, sip some warm wassail punch.

Tuesday, December 13 @ 6:30 pm - ``Blue Christmas Vespers``

Each year we gather to share sacred space with kindred spirits as we acknowledge and honor our feelings of loss, grief, anger, regret, or pain during this season. Loved ones missing from the table, pressure to live up to expectations, challenges of living in an ongoing pandemic can make us feel blue rather than jolly this season. If this most wonderful time of the year is bittersweet and complex for you, please join us as we find peace in being with one another and find authentic ways of marking the holiday season with rituals that honor the realities of our lives.

Saturday, December 17 @ 4:30 pm - ``Winter Solstice: Honoring the Darkness, Welcoming the Light``

Revs. Kelly Crocker and Kelly Asprooth-Jackson
The longest night of the year, the Winter Solstice, is the time when the light returns, and our days slowly begin to lengthen. It is a time to remember, in story and song, the hope that lives within this dark and fertile time and within each of us, as we recall the true light of our lives, the love that lives within, and the power we hold when we shine our light into the world and partake in the miracle of renewal. The FUS Teen Choir will sing.

Sunday, December 18 - ``Mysterious Darkness, Wondrous Light``

The hours of daylight are quickly being eclipsed by the hours of darkness as we approach the solstice on December 21st. These are the days when we are quick to light candles and welcome in the brightness they provide. Yet we are wise to pause for a moment in the darkness and explore the mysteries we can find there before setting off into the wonders of the growing light. Join us as we let the light and darkness bless each other and us. Flutist Marilyn Chohaney will play Syrinx by Debussy as well as carols from England, France, and Germany.