Welcome to the exciting month of December. Throughout the Bluffs & Bayous region, folks have been preparing to make this holiday season a spectacular one. In many of our communities, holiday decorations already “deck the halls” as they eagerly welcome the Christmas season, anticipate the lighting of the towns’ Christmas trees, and complement the Christmas parades that kick off following Thanksgiving weekend. Add this spirited expectancy to some of our recent chilly days and nights, and…..it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!
In our December issue, we feature one of our community’s annual Christmas traditions—the work of the Santa Claus Committee in Natchez, Mississippi—that reaches out to embrace those whose holidays need a bit of brightening. Many of us are blessed with good health and the material comforts of home, nice jobs, and financial security. Many others are not. The Santa Claus Committee with a bit of merriment and bastion of commitment has sought to help these multitudes who are not. For eighty-two years now on Christmas Eve, this committee’s enthusiastic members have cruised around the city of Natchez in a parade of their various vehicles, including Santa in his open-air “ride,” tossing candy and quarters and spreading cheer to children (and adults) along the way. At the end of their hours-long parade route, committee members welcome children to a Christmas party and distribute Christmas gifts, funded from the thousands of dollars the committee raises for this and other community-assistance agencies.
We applaud all those in our communities who work so hard, so selflessly, to brighten the hearts of so many and keep the tradition of service alive in our communities. May their spirit, which is the spirit of Christmas both now and year round, find its way into all of our hearts this season and enrich us with a stronger conviction of what our purpose and mission are here on earth.
This season brings amazing events for all of us to enjoy. It is a refreshing time to reflect on the real reason for and the real message of this holiday season. Our December…Up & Coming calendar chronicles these many events throughout the region, and we provide their websites for you to visit and learn more about the exciting details. Be sure to select your favorites to attend and spread the spirit of the season. May all of our days this December be blessed with giving to others and may the riches of this sharing be reinvested year after year as we cherish life along and beyond the Mississippi.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the staff of Bluffs & Bayous!
