I knew I should not have put my Christmas decorations away last year. I said at the time, “I’ll turn around twice and it will be Christmas again.” Sure enough, it is the 3rd of December 2024! The town of Nashville now has snow flakes on light posts that magically light up in the dark. It isn’t your imagination, people have put up their Christmas decoration early this year.
No matter how old I get, the nostalgia of the Season returns. One chorus of, I’ll be Home for Christmas, you can count on me, and I’m officially an emotional blur.
One of the first things I asked when we moved to Nashville was, “What do people do that it wouldn’t be Christmas if they didn’t do it?” I was thinking of the Chicago Ballet performing The Nutcracker, cold feet and tired ankles with the first winter ice-skating when the Evanston Park District froze its ponds. I must have been asking the wrong people because no one offered an answer.
I read a mystery every Season set at Christmas time. I love egg nog, Christmas spice tea and the best of all, peppermint ice cream. I have finished my first carton and didn’t share a bite. I’ve ordered my first grandchildren presents, a beautiful set of fairy-like wings that have little lights and a fantastic lego tractor. Perhaps you can guess that my favorite present, however, is giving a book.
I’ve told this story before: Arriving at The Cottage for Two in 2016 or was it 2015? I started from a place that thought, “What the ‘ell am I doing in Nashville,NC and where is it? Some time goes by. I’m sitting at the downtown location of the Prime Smokehouse. Someone behind me says, “Welcome home, Stepheny.” It was the unforgettable, irresistible, lady I want to be like when I grow up, it was Mae Parker. I realized in that moment she’s right, I am at home.
The first time I saw Main Street it was silent and like the air had been let out of a bicycle tire. From that silence the seeds were planted to write the blog, Mainstreetrockymount.com. The architecture of historical significance became my heart beat to write, to meet a zillion fabulous people downtown and all over. Political junkie that I am, the Rocky Mount City Council can keep me up all night; THINKING……of all the possibilities, the great accomplishments revitalization has brought. New businesses, food, living above the store availability, vitality, and energy. As you enter this Advent Season, take up your traditions, drink your share of egg nog, go downtown.
Shop, eat, shake hands with strangers, support the organizations that are looking out for those in need. The Lord has blessed us indeed, and we, like the wisemen, will be moving closer each day to the manager to kneel before the Light of the World.
Main Street Rocky Mount 
