Estevan just seems more festive this year.
Oh sure, you’ll find lots of well-decorated homes in the city every year. And you’ll see lights on the Christmas tree at city hall annually, and the city will hang Christmas decorations on light standards in November in advance of Christmas.
We’ve seen more efforts to spread Christmas cheer in recent years, with such initiatives as the Festival of Lights at Woodlawn Regional Park.
But the number of initiatives seems higher than before.
There’s a beautiful new Christmas tree at the intersection of King Street, 13th Avenue and King Street – one of the busiest intersections in the city. People have been raving about this tree and its 3,100 twinkling lights.
The Downtown Business Association has its large gift box decorations in front of a number of stores.
There are lots of added decorations on the lampposts in downtown, boosting the enjoyment of the Christmas season, and making downtown just a little more festive.
And there are 10 nice-looking Christmas trees now on display at the Garden Park on Fourth Street.
All of these are adding up to make a big difference, regardless of how big they are.
And that’s a lesson to be learned for all of us.
We all like the large-scale things that make us giddy. They’re fun, exciting and memorable. But grandeur isn’t always possible.
It’s not always possible to do something big with lots of lights, decorations and other items that catch the eye of those passing by. We can’t all have a collection of lights that bring people from throughout the community. It takes time, money and commitment to make it happen.
If you can pull it off, that’s great. We thank you. But it’s great to have lots of smaller items that brighten up the night, too.
And it’s great to have a road like Jubilee Place where so many people go all out to decorate their homes, but there’s nothing wrong with a block or a street where everyone does something smaller.
As an aside, if you have a well-decorated home, be sure to enter it in the Light Up Estevan contest offered by the Estevan Mercury and the City of Estevan, and see how you fare.
If you’re out and about at Christmas time, enjoying a twinkle tour or a similar activity, be sure to note the different decorations that you see, and enter our Christmas scavenger hunt. We’re sure there are a few homes that can help you with those decorations.
Now that we have a nice, light layer of snow on the ground throughout the community, and it’s going to be here for a while thanks to the cold weather we’re having, it feels a little more like Christmas is approaching than it did last week, when we had double digit highs.
This can be a wonderful time of year, not just for children, but for adults, too. We can all enjoy the wonder of Christmas, have fun times with family and friends, and look forward to something special Dec. 25.
We also understand that this is a difficult time of year for so many in our community. They’re suffering from loneliness and depression, and those feelings are only exacerbated at this time of year. For other people, it’s difficult, because they don’t have the opportunities that others do, and they can’t provide what they want.
So it’s important for us to do our part to help people have a better Christmas, by giving to the different causes in the community that help others at this time of year. (Believe us, there are lots of opportunities to give).
It’s Christmas. It’s a great time of year. And thankfully there are so many things that can add up to make this a merry Christmas for so many.
And if you can, assist those who might need a helping hand to have that Merry Christmas.
