The Promise of the Parade
By: Hollis Hartwell
The wonderful thing about parades is they don’t always happen. They’re special. They require planning and anticipation. Demand us to make decisions on the perfect chair to bring and perfect spot along Main Street to put it.
Then, when the stars align, the music will start, the floats will roll out, and everyone from the town plumber waving a jingle bell–covered plunger to the dentist dressed as a giant molar with elf ears will roll by your seat and spread Christmas cheer.
But what if the parade eludes us? What if it’s too early, too late, or the wrong day altogether? What if, like me, your heart is too dinged and dented to attend?
As kind and merry as the parade is, it will not reschedule. Its promise is to carry on. It won’t care if it’s your chair along Main Street or someone else’s. It is the lesson of tradition: be here or not, the show must go on.
On the day when eager faces lined the annual route and waited for Santa to cruise by, I found myself next to my unexpected holiday guides being dragged to the middle of nowhere.
Only it wasn’t nowhere at all; it was a Christmas tree farm turned modern marvel, which effectively stole my breath and stopped my heart.
And, because I want to be nothing less than honest with you, I wasn’t even really dragged. I just went.
Sure, my fuel was an abominable mixture of sadness and loneliness, but there was also curiosity too. A lingering what if? dancing at the blurred edges of my thoughts and propelling me toward strangers and an unknown destination in the woods.
There were no crowds. No fire engines blaring their sirens.
No kids catching candy. It was not showy.
The magic there was of a different variety.
Like the pull to shake a snow globe then being unable to look away until the last flurries settle on the bottom, this unassuming display demanded attention and stillness.
Tucked in the trees, it did not care when I showed up. I didn’t need the perfect seat nor spot to put said seat because, much to my surprise, every angle offered views. Its only requirement was darkness and was only enhanced by silence.
But it wasn’t the unpredicted beauty of the location that had me lying in bed staring at the ceiling long after I returned home; it was the realization of how much I enjoyed it. How much I wish someone would have been there to hold my hand and look at me the way I looked at the trees.
Despite my current aloneness, I wasn’t lonely there. Instead, an incipient flame of hope lit within me. Hope that maybe—just maybe—there’s a chance I’ll make it through this season after all.
But with that hope came a dark cloud of doubt at how lasting my wonder will be. Was I only amazed because my sadness needed something beautiful, or will I look at the floats from my familiar spot along Main Street next year and dream of standing between glowing trees?
It’s hard for me to imagine a season that ends in me feeling fulfilled without a parade, but even more so, to imagine never seeing these trees again.
I read once it’s the forsaken who have the biggest room for growth. If true, this season without everything I love may prove the perfect time for a spurt.