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ednesday November 30 marks the official end of the 2011 Hurricane season. While statistics and the laws of probability hold that a hurricane won’t happen before next June, that sigh of relief doesn’t come easily.

Hurricane Irene’s flooding on August 27 has taken a lot out of both the village of Oriental and eastern Pamlico County. Many residents are still not back in their homes, waiting for repairs to be made. Even those of us who escaped flooding of our personal living space speak of the exhaustion all around. Folks are simply tired. We got the Irene blues.

A Spirit of Christmas entry two Decembers ago, with the Grinch who broke down….

In a fine bit of timing, the end of hurricane season comes just a week and a half before Oriental’s Spirit of Christmas celebration, slated for Friday/Saturday December 9/10 this year. Paul Fairbank, who organizes the Spirit of Christmas parade – Saturday the 10th at 4p – sees in this an opportunity for some psychological healing from Irene. Or as the longtime parademeister puts it in his best 1950’s TV announcer patter, to “turn that frown upside down.”

Chief Parade Elf Paul Fairbank awaits your call. (He can also cut you a good deal if you need elf suits….)

Santa will be there… how about you? At the Oriental Dinghy Dock, scoping out one possible entry point to town for his sleigh.

Paul needs more parade entrants. The theme is “Christmas Around The World.” Entrants are welcome to do with that theme what they will. Something to bring a smile may be especially welcomed this year. Just register with Paul by calling 249-0023 or visit him at the hardware store.

One way to cure the blues: an absurd interpretation of a parade theme made people smile in 2007. That year the parade theme was: The Twelve Days of Christmas. These 11 pipers showed up not with trumpets but tobacco and bathrobes.

Eight Maids A Milking (latex gloves from the Pamlico Community College’s medical technician program) in the 2007 parade.

Spirit of Christmas of course features other events besides the parade. There’s the Friday night lighted boat flotilla. (To enter your boat in that, contact Mike Guzzo at 249-2347) and then at 6p, the lighting of the Oriental Star near the Town Dock. Saturday brings hours of various businesses and non-profits serving up things to eat and drink. Then the parade at 4p and the lighting of the luminaria down Oriental’s main roads at dusk.

If you’d like to help assemble those luminaria, your hands would be welcomes at the assembly sessions during that week before the event. (And the organizers can use some extra hands to set them out Saturday morning and pick them up on Sunday.)

Spirit Links

Here are links to past Spirit Of Christmas parades:

• The 2007 Spirit of Christmas Parade.

• The 2008 Spirit of Christmas Parade.

• The 2009 Spirit of Christmas Parade.

• …and the Grinch who stole the limelight that year.

• The 2010 (Mostly Rained-Out) Christmas Parade

Posted Tuesday November 29, 2011 by Melinda Penkava