You Can Feel it in the Air

Wind’s in the east, mist coming in
Like something is brewing, about to begin…

Chim Chim Cheree, from Mary Poppins

We are on day 181 of 15 days to slow the spread.

You can feel it in the air. The weather has shifted.

Overnight temperatures here were in the 50s last night. The days of summer are behind us.

Oh sure, we’ll have warm days again before the real cold hits. But none of those days when the sweaters are

The Write Side Shop
(click the pic)

the people and not a fashion statement.

While summer remains my favorite season, I’m okay with autumn, as well as spring.

It’s winter that I don’t like.

Don’t tell that to the people that hire me to put on the red suit.

That’s different this year as well and there’s still a good bit of sorting out. Where will children see Santa this year?

Let me just say that Santa will be around. But like everything else we’ve experienced in our 47 years of house arrest it will be different.

You know I’ll share the news when I can.

I saw yesterday that the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade will also be different. I was concerned at first that it was going to be completely canceled like the Tournament of Roses Parade. Instead, the Macy’s parade is being re-imagined mostly for a television audience.

I think we all know that some things that have been re-imagined have worked while some have not. I wish them the best.

The Macy’s parade has been a part of my Thanksgiving morning since I was a child and we watched it on a black and white television. Always on NBC.

Always.

As a child I always wondered by Santa showed up at the end of the parade. In those years of live Christmas trees that you risked putting up even a week before Christmas Day, the holiday didn’t seem so rushed.

These days, Christmas is already 40% off at Hobby Lobby.

Now, as an adult, a shopper, and as the man in the red suit, I understand why we start seeing Santa in early November. Even if it feels like rushing the season.

Back to the parade route, my family knows that even now our Thanksgiving Day needs to be scheduled around the parade times.

Sure, you can watch the dog show. After the parade.

I’ve always wanted to see the parade live. I don’t have to worry about that this year.

I did once have the chance to see it. Some college friends and I were spending our extended Christmas break working for The Salvation Army in New York City. On Thanksgiving Day, we were invited to spend the day at a friend’s house in New Jersey. I knew going would mean missing the parade. But I made the right choice. For many reasons.

I figured I’d always have the chance to go back to New York to see the parade.

Forty plus years later the window is narrowing.

It’s like the “Go Hike the Canyon” shirt that I bought a few years after the New York trip. I never made it back to hike the canyon. I’m just hoping I can still make it back to ride the motorized scooter around the edge and annoy the other tourists.

This hasn’t been the year to get out and fulfill some of those dreams.

For most, it’s just been a year of one disappointment after another.

At the same time, it’s been a year that has offered us opportunity.

As the holidays approach, maybe we’ll remember why we call it Thanksgiving and why we celebrate Christmas.

Maybe, just maybe, 2020 has given us an opportunity to think about what is really important.

Maybe, just maybe, we’ll be better because of it.

Can’t put me finger on what lies in store…

Photo by Jordan Ladikos on Unsplash


 

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