Offering joy
to our part of the world

At a time when we’re all looking to capitalize on what makes our community better than others, we need to realize that tradition is a commodity small towns like ours have in abundance.

My 48-year-old son and I, for example, have celebrated Thanksgiving in Marion every year — minus one marred by COVID — since before he learned to read.

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This year, grandson Henry will arrive first from Purdue University, where he plays sousaphone in the marching band and studies to become, quite literally, a rocket scientist.

Son Nate, who oversees homeland security projects at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, will arrive a day later with my granddaughters, Maggie and Josie, who aren’t that far behind Henry in heading off to college, and my daughter-in-law, Elizabeth, who somehow manages to juggle being both a mom and a high-level business consultant.

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Whether Friend Cat will greet them with claw-retracted paws or hide as he did last year when a documentary crew came and wanted to shoot video of him entering and exiting his litter box is the biggest uncertainty of the trip.

Unlike me as host, this tradition will never get old. But some do, and that’s when it’s time for a bit of tweaking.

Over the years, we at the newspaper have tried many things to brighten the dark times that follow the end of daylight saving time and help keep Christmas spirit alive for more than just a day or two of events and avaricious holiday shopping.

This year, we’ll be putting a few new twists on our holiday package, starting with next week’s paper.

It still will be dated Nov. 27, but instead of being printed on Wednesday, it will come out two days early, so everyone will have plenty of time to savor what we hope will be a special Thanksgiving treat.

Included will be all manner of special holiday items, including Thanksgiving artwork by kids along with longtime favorites in which they write about what they are thankful for and offer their own special recipes for how to prepare a Thanksgiving feast.

Many local schools have been sending us material from their students, but if you want to make sure your kids, grandkids, nieces, nephews, or neighbors aren’t left out, there’s still time until later this week to drop items off at our office.

In next week’s paper, we’ll also be unveiling a new multi-week set of Christmas contests, entries in which will decorate the paper each week until our traditional Dear Santa section, printed two days early this year.

We’ll be asking kids and even adults to draw or take photos for original Christmas cards, which we hope we might be able to have printed as actual cards people can use next year.

We’ll be asking for favorite holiday recipes, looking for the best homemade Christmas ornaments, honoring the best Christmas lights and home décor, and urging readers to send in photos of pets in Christmas garb and them in ugly — or beautiful — Christmas sweaters. We’ll also be highlighting local craftspeople and merchants who offer gifts you simply can’t find anywhere else.

Basically, we’ll be asking everyone of all ages to share Christmas joy by contributing whatever whiffs of Christmas spirit they can, then publishing different assortments of them each week leading up to Christmas, when we’ll offer readers a chance to vote on their favorites in multiple categories.

Christmas season is more than Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday. Yes, we all buy and exchange gifts, but if that’s all that Christmas is about, we’re missing a lot — including most of what’s special about living in a small town. That’s the spirit we’re hoping to capture in this year’s holiday promotion.

The first element of that promotion appears this week in the Holiday Happenings list on Page 7. The first group of merchants helping us try to make the season bright by sponsoring the page deserve your support and thanks. If your business isn’t listed and you don’t want to be conspicuous by its absence from community Christmas spirit, there’s still time to be added to the sponsor list for the remaining weeks of the season. Just contact Debbie Steele, our elf in charge of making the season bright.

As we plan to do next week, we’ll be printing two days early on both Christmas week and New Year’s week — not only to make sure you get your paper before the holiday but also to give our staff some much-needed time off. Thanksgiving week and Christmas week, our staff still will be covering news, but our office won’t be open Tuesday through Friday.

It’s all part of what we call Christmas in the Heartland, with an emphasis on the heart and a fervent hope that retail sales aside, we as a community can keep the home fires burning.

— ERIC MEYER