Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
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THIS WEEK WITH MARGARET Cards of Love and Loss by MARGARET DICKSON THIS WEEK WITH MARGARET One of my favorite parts of the Christmas holiday season begins around Thanksgiving and only picks up steam as the season unfolds. No, it’s not the decorations, even though I love them. I admit I get great joy from unpacking the Dicksons’ special ones, and savoring the memories each carries with it. It is the cards from friends and family all over the country and some in far-fl ung corners of the world, that are my favorite. I appreciate the cards from business and professional associates, but it is the ones from people we love and have histories with that I wait for every year, often keeping an eye out for the mail truck when I know it is about time for the delivery. My devotion to these cards began when my friends settled into real life, married and began families. The fi rst ones I remember contained wedding photographs. Then came the ones with babies — initially just the fi rstborn who had turned their lives around and then the subsequent children, sometimes like stair steps and sometimes with gaps of years between them. These were almost always candid shots, children at the beach, children in the snow, children with their dogs. Then came the teenaged shots, with the subjects of the photos clearly uninterested in having their pictures taken to send to their parents’ friends. And now we are receiving wedding photographs from the children’s big day and some pictures of the grandchildren — more children at the beach, in the snow and with their dogs. The fi rst photographic Christmas card I remember sending was of our fi rst Precious Jewel. Not quite 1, he was lying on his tummy in his crib propped up on his arms, a big smile revealing few teeth, and wearing a red Santa hat. I thought it was the perfect Christmas card, but Precious Jewel is not nearly as fond of it as I am. Little Santa was followed by years of other cards, another with only one child, then several with two little ones, and then there were three for more than two decades along with various beloved dogs. And, yes, there were beach photos and sports photos and graduation photos, but I do not remember any in the snow. Now that the Dicksons seem to be moving into a new phase of photographic Christmas cards, several of this year’s crop stand out. One comes from a childhood neighbor a bit older than I and her husband who have retired to a lovely North Carolina beach. In their picture, they are surrounded by their seven grandchildren, including two sets of twins and a babe in arms, with a note describing their beach home as “Camp JuJu/BigDa,” an apparent reference to the name the children have given it. Another comes from a friend in Connecticut who lost her mother a few months ago at 93. Having a daughter as a new bride and a son with a toddler seems to be helping her through it. On the clever side is the card from my longtime dentist, who always sends a creative effort. This one shows the dentist in a Santa hat — his usual card attire — surrounded by this staff in Santa scrub jackets. Below with the caption “Oh, can you recognize us now?” is another photo of the same people, only in this picture they wear their non-holiday professional look of regular scrubs, face masks, latex gloves, hair nets and protective glasses. You gotta give those guys a gold star and a new toothbrush! Another comes from long-time friends who have had quite a year. Both of them suffered seriously broken bones that required surgery, all the while pulling off a lovely wedding for one child. It helps that another child has returned home to help with the family business and another will graduate from college in only a few months. The one that touched me the most, though, comes from a college friend who lives in another state. We have seen each other only sporadically over the years because she cannot travel at all or even leave her home very often. She was paralyzed from the chest down almost three decades ago in a diving accident when the youngest of her four children was only 4-years-old. Since then she has communicated by snail mail and more recently by email, but my favorites were the Christmas cards with pictures of her beautiful children as they grew up, married and as the grandchildren began arriving. It has been a saga and an ordeal I followed from afar, always anxious for her card to arrive. This year for the fi rst time ever, the children were gone, and there is a picture of my longtime friend and the husband who has been by her side for so many years, both smiling happily, and two young children. The caption reads, “Here we are with our favorite neighborhood kids — our grandchildren…” I tear up every time I look at it for their road has been long and hard. The Dicksons wish you and your family joy and peace this holiday season. MARGARET DICKSON,Contributing Writer. COMMENTS?editor@upandcom- ingweekly.com Bring in the New Year at Festival Park by KAREN POPPELE If you think dogwood fl owers appear in Fayetteville only in the spring, think again! For the second year in a row, an oversized dogwood blossom will descend on Downtown Fayetteville during the annual New Year’s Eve Party in the Park on Friday, Dec. 31, from 6:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. in Festival Park. Presented by the Fayetteville Dogwood Festival, Party in the Park is a free family-focused event. “We really designed the event for folks who have children and have nothing to do for New Year’s,” said Carrie King, executive director of the Fayetteville Dogwood Festival. “Everything started with some friends in my backyard a few years ago. We didn’t want to go to a bar, and we had kids. We pitched it to the board. That’s where the idea came from.” The evening kicks off with activities especially for the kids, including a DJ and a children’s area hosted by The Partnership For Children. “Everyone’s favorite party band,” Hot Sauce, will take to the stage at 10 p.m. “We have an early countdown and fi reworks show for the kids at 8:30. There’s a children’s activity area that will be in a heated tent if needed,” King said. 6 UCW DECEMBER 22-28, 2010 “You can come and spend nothing and have a good time. There will be bands and entertainment on the stage all evening long, and then of course, after 8:30, it’s geared more toward the adults who want something to do without having to pay a cover charge to get in. We’ll have beer, champagne and food vendors. At midnight we’re going to count down on the stage, the dogwood will blossom and we’ll have a fi reworks show again.” In addition to the dogwood “blossom” at midnight, the party will provide live feed of the Times Square festivities in New York City. According to King, about 5,000 people attended the New Year’s Eve Party in the Park inaugural event in 2009. “We were sure there was a need for this type of event in our community, and I think that the community trusts the Dogwood Festival with putting on a good event, but better yet, a free event, so that’s what we’ve done,” said King. “We would obviously like to see a bigger attendance than what we had last year. It is a new event, and a lot of people don’t know about it. We’re trying to start a new tradition for Fayetteville. Everybody loves the Dogwood Festival, and we are so hoping that they’ll build New Year’s as a part of their family tradition.” So bundle up the kids, bring your chairs and blankets and join the Fayetteville Dogwood Festival for a free event that they “hope to bloom into another Fayetteville favorite!” For more information, visit www.faydogwoodfestival. com or call (910) 323-1934. No coolers or weapons of any kind allowed. No pets except service animals. KAREN POPPELE, Contributing Writ- er. COMMENTS? 484-6200 ext. 222. or editor@upandcomingweekly.com. WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM