Wishing All A Healthy, Happy Holiday Season

Your UUFA Executive Committee

Left: Jessie Roberson, Barb Harrison Pete Mather, Richard Thieret, Roberta Roberson,

Susan Westenbarger, Andy Ray, Jeff Wunderly    (not pictured Nellie James) 

 

Lots of Holiday Joy for All – Please join us for any of all of these seasonal services

December Sunday Services –  all start at 11:00 AM – 184 Longview Hts., Athens, OH 45701

December 7 – Navigating the Holidays When Things Aren’t So Jolly – The holidays are often portrayed as joyful, warm, and full of meaningful connection—but for many people, they’re actually one of the most difficult times of the year. This contrast between expectations and reality can intensify feelings of stress, grief, loneliness, depression and more.
Please join us Sunday, December 7th, when Vanessa Vandermark M.Ed, LPCC, LCDC III will talk with us about the challenges faced by many this time of year and offer evidence-informed suggestions to help ease suffering in ourselves and those we care about and love.

December 14 – The Stories We Tell in Song and Season.  Come decorate cookies with us as we tell tales of holidays in music.  Visiting guest musicians, Metra Peterson and the Athens Recorder Consort.

December 21 –  Winter Solstice; Preparing for the Return of the Sun.  Please join us this Sunday for service as we pause as the solar calendar foretells. We will mark this moment in time by creating symbols of light to see us through the coming winter nights. We will use natural materials (mostly) and folks will be encouraged to create their own Yule Log. We will learn about the materials that we are using to represent our creations. Each person will be able to give their own intentions for peace, love and light or perhaps whatever you’d like to symbolically leave behind in this year!

 

Wednesday, December 24 – 7:00 PM –  Chritmas Eve Service Please join us for the special Christmas Eve Service . We will tell this story in quiet contemplation.

 

December 28 – A Ritual of Letting Go – We bid you welcome to “A Ritual of Letting Go, Cleansing, Intention, and Hope”  (worship words by Sylvia Howe)  Like Janus we gather with part of us looking backward and part of us looking forward.  We gather on the edge of the new year saddened by our losses, cherishing our joys, aware of our failures, mindful of days gone by.  We gather on the cusp of this new year eager to begin anew, hopeful for what lies ahead, promising to make changes, anticipating tomorrows and tomorrows.  We invite you to join our celebration of life, knowing that life includes good and bad, endings and beginnings—and EVERYTHING in between!

 

Happy New Year 2026 

Glancing ahead to  January Sunday Services:

January 4, 2026 – A New Year, A New UU

January 11, 2026 – The Quiet Work of Winter

 

From our Denomination

 

Collective Abundance

By Melissa Jeter

November 26, 2025

“The single greatest lesson the garden teaches is that our relationship to the planet need not be zero-sum, and that as long as the sun still shines and people still can plan and plant, think and do, we can, if we bother to try, find ways to provide for ourselves without diminishing the world.”
—Michael Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma

My abundance is at home. When I’m out of funds, I know that I still have friends. They’re the kind of people who make a meal and bring it over, just because they were having fun cooking and thought of me. Their joy is in giving.

At my home, I put my hands in the dirt, sowing seeds. When there’s only a little in the pantry, I just might be able to reap a few herbs, some leaves of kale, or lettuce. It might not make a meal, but it brings flavor that enhances the rice, beans, or peas.

Once, as a child, I heard my grandmother exclaim, “I had enough rice and beans during the depression to last a lifetime!” In her home, I never had rice or beans—but I’d see her making baked macaroni and cheese with lots of butter and at least three kinds of cheese. My grandfather would walk in the back door, leading into the kitchen, carrying bunches of greens, collards, turnips, maybe a few sweet potatoes. Unbeknownst to me at the time, my grandfather had been in the country on the land where my great-grandparents had lived. Later, my grandmother would fuss about him being “out there,” but he liked putting his hands in the dirt. He loved his blue pickup truck. He loved seeing me and my brother as children out in the country.

At home, relationships were generative. There was concern for well-being, food for the soul, and rest for the body. I could easily rest. I could lie down on the couch in the parlor and fall into a deep sleep.

My grandparents are now ancestors, but they taught me about creating a home of abundance. They remind me that I’m loved when I am in my own garden. When my friends agree to water my garden—and I water theirs—we are creating and holding abundance. Collectively, we hold us: that, too, is abundance.

Prayer

Let the presence of Grace be revealed when we reorient ourselves to each other. May we embrace the wisdom of our Ancestors speaking to us in the traditions we’ve continued. Let us breathe the Breath of Abundance, knowing There is enough. We are enough. Let us circle back home to regenerate for the journeys to come.
Amen. Ashe. Blessed be.