One shopkeeper says she senses more enthusiasm and gaiety among shoppers, and a local innkeeper appreciates the way people don’t seem to be rushing through the holidays.
Along the streets of Edgartown, garlands twist up the lamp posts, lights string along shrubs and wreaths hang on the stores’ front doors.
For 31 years the town has celebrated Christmas with a Main street parade, and come Saturday morning, the sleigh bells will be ringing and the children singing as Santa makes his way down the street, with 45 other floats following behind.
But these days the event is much more than just a wave from Santa’s sleigh.
Like the famous snowman with a corncob pipe and a button nose, Edgartown will come to life this weekend for the 30th annual Christmas in Edgartown celebration, a weekend of events that would put even the North Pole to shame.
Wearing their sashes proudly and standing with their wagons full of cookies, a group of Girl Scouts were waiting with anticipation last Saturday in Edgartown for a Santa sighting.
They watched as dogs in festive wear walked by in the annual Christmas in Edgartown parade, the Vineyard Assembly of God caroled through the streets in Dickensian costumes, and miniature ponies with sleigh bells trotted across town.
And then, he turned the corner.
Here’s a proposed expedition every bit as adventurous (but not nearly as brutal) as Capt. Shackleton’s trek across South Georgia Island: Why not sit down with loved ones and plan to attend every last event being staged over the coming weekend — Dec. 11 to Dec. 13 — of the Christmas In Edgartown extravaganza?
You really need a plan if you’re venturing out this weekend. More than a plan — a strategy. And sustenance — no, on second thought you can just work stops for free snacks into your strategy. But sneakers might be a good idea, for sprinting between events during this, the annual Christmas in Edgartown weekend extravaganza.
Or maybe just forget all that and take a sanguine, Santa’s-coming-to-town approach to walking around the whaling captain’s village for the whole weekend.
Downtown Edgartown began looking a bit like Christmas weeks ago when wreathlike green loops appeared on the white picket fences at Hob Knob Inn and Tomassian & Tomassian law offices. Soon after, Santa began standing sentry in faux Doc Martens by Edgartown Hardware and evergreen spriggery sprouted in Soigne’s windows.
