From a family-friendly experience for your pre-schooler to a traditional carols and candlelight service for everyone from the kids to Grandma, there is a Christmas Eve service to match your needs at St. Stephen Lutheran Church, 537 Bolton Street, Marlborough.
    At 4 pm on Friday, December 24, the Family Service will encourage participation through
responsive readings, a story time, holy communion, and an opportunity to share prayers. “This is a time to come together to hear the Good News that Jesus is born,” said St. Stephen Pastor Joseph Graumann. “Kids are welcome to sit on the floor in the center of the church, and the first two rows will be reserved for their parents,” he added. This service will be a little shorter than the evening service.
    The Festival Eucharist Service, at 7 pm, will offer a more traditional Christmas Eve with readings, prayers, holy communion, carols, and the lighting of candles. Both the handbell choir and the vocal choir will provide additional music. Those who attend will hear the creation story in a new way “as we celebrate God’s message, that Jesus is with us, here and now,” Pastor Graumann noted. “Whether you are new to church or newly returning, you have a place at Christ’s table.”
    Masks are required for everyone age two and above, at both services, and those who are eligible are encouraged to be vaccinated. For those who would prefer Christmas Eve worship from home, both services will be available through YouTube. Go to the church’s website, www.saintstephenlutheran.com, and select Visit our YouTube Channel.
    For more information about the church, visit www.saintstephenlutheran.com  or the church’s Facebook page. Saint Stephen is a member of the New England Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (www.elca.org). The church is a Reconciling in Christ congregation, inviting people of every gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, ability, marital status, or class. Parishioners come from Marlborough, Hudson, Berlin, Northborough, Southborough, Westborough, Shrewsbury, Sudbury, Stow, and Bolton.
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Singing, playing musical instruments, eating Christmas leftovers, feeding the birds, and going on sleigh rides are among a myriad of world customs for St. Stephen Day, December 26, but perhaps the most popular is to give gifts to the poor. The people of St. Stephen Lutheran Church, Marlborough are going to embrace that giving tradition of the church’s patron saint, and invite the community to join them.
    Partnering with Fresh Start Furniture Bank in Hudson, St. Stephen church will collect new blankets and throws between now and Sunday, December 26. If you would like to participate in bringing a little coziness to our neighbors, you can drop off your donation to the church at 537 Bolton Street, Marlborough (Route 85) on Sunday, December 19, from 9 am to noon. (The worship service will take place from 10-11, but items can be left in the lobby.) 
    You can also bring your blankets to one of the Christmas Eve services, Friday, December 24 at 4 pm (Family Service) and 7 p.m (traditional service with candlelight, carols, and handbells). Please note that all items (blankets, throws, comforters) must be new and unused, and should be left inside the church, in the lobby.
    At the 10 am worship service on Sunday, December 26, the collection will be blessed and taken to Fresh Start the following week. Along with other area groups Fresh Start has been working hard to resettle many of the refugees coming to this area.
    For more information about the church, visit www.saintstephenlutheran.com  or the church’s Facebook page. Saint Stephen is a member of the New England Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (www.elca.org). The church is a Reconciling in Christ congregation, inviting people of every gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, ability, marital status, or class. Parishioners come from Marlborough, Hudson, Berlin, Northborough, Southborough, Westborough, Shrewsbury, Sudbury, Stow, and Bolton

Two groups contributed their skills, their time, and their money to make Christmas a little happier —and warmer— for mariners served by Seafarers International House, based in New York City. The Knit Wits of St. Stephen Lutheran Church, Marlborough and the Shrewsbury based Night Knitters created handmade hats and scarves, the basis for 30 gift satchels put together by St. Stephen church volunteers. The kits were also packed with a sweatshirt, a teeshirt, a pair of socks, a can of nuts, and a hand made Christmas card.
    Seafarers are often isolated and lonely, sometimes without the means to contact family frequently, or purchase needed items while in port. Typical contracts put most at sea for 10 months a year, and they remain a largely forgotten population at the holidays.
    This is the sixth year the St. Stephen knitters made sure Seafarers would be warm and not forgotten at Christmas. In the first year of participation, Saint Stephen sent five kits and they have been increasing their donation each year. Those who knitted, donated, or put together the satchels this year included Janice Conlin, Joyce Danielson, Lina Dickey, Martha Domke, Marlea Dutt, Ginny Fulham, Ann Gibson, Pastor Joe Graumann, Liz Greer, Peg and Don Harbert, Judy Kellogg, Elaine Recklet, Melanie Whapham and Jane Woolsey. Some funding for the sweatshirts was provided through a Thrivent Action Team initiative. Thrivent, a financial services company, supports a variety of outreach projects. The project was organized by Melanie Whapham, who also delivered the gift packages to a Seafarers chaplain in New Haven, Connecticut. An additional 8 hand knitted hats were donated to the Hudson Food Pantry.
    Seafarers International House is an ecumenical mission of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America to seafarers and sojourners, as well as people who are distressed, disadvantaged, and displaced. For more information, check out https:/www.sihnyc.org.
    Seven Lutheran chaplains support the Seafarers Port Mission. When requested, they will board merchant marine ships to provide pastoral care and counseling. During the holidays, chaplains distribute the packages to ships that port in New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, Philadelphia and southern New England that will be out at sea for Christmas.
    For more information about the church, visit www.saintstephenlutheran.com  or the church’s Facebook page. Saint Stephen is a member of the New England Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (www.elca.org) . The church is a Reconciling in Christ congregation, inviting people of every gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, ability, marital status, or class. Parishioners come from Marlborough, Hudson, Berlin, Northborough, Southborough, Westborough, Shrewsbury, Sudbury, Stow, and Bolton

More than 20 families from St. Stephen Lutheran Church, Marlborough, participated in a recent outreach to the Northampton-based Cathedral in the Night, an outdoor community that offers Sunday evening worship followed by a free meal. In an effort spearheaded by youth group leader Sarah Maston, parishioners responded by donating and preparing food, bringing warm clothing, and/or purchasing needed items such as socks, sweats, and thermal underwear, through the CITN Amazon wish list.
    In previous years, church youth had attended worship, served hot meals, and dined with the guests, but Covid restrictions have meant that dinner is now prepared for takeout. The Maston family and six other volunteers dished out 80 hot meals for the to-go containers.
    Cathedral in the Night, www.cathedralinthenight.org, is an outdoor Christian community in downtown Northampton, MA which seeks to create a safe place for all people: the homeless, the housed, the church-less, the churched, the student and the resident to explore, question and live out their spiritual beliefs; to gather for a meal and to empower one another to engage in issues of social justice by working to fight the causes of inequality and homelessness. 
    For more information about St. Stephen Lutheran Church, visit the church’s Facebook page or website, www.saintstephenlutheran.com. Saint Stephen is a member of the New England Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (www.elca.org). The church is a Reconciling in Christ congregation, inviting people of every gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, ability, marital status, or class. Parishioners come from Marlborough, Hudson, Berlin, Northborough, Southborough, Westborough, Shrewsbury, Sudbury, Stow, and Bolton. 
    Worship is held each Sunday at 10 am, with those attending asked to wear masks.
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