Our trees are up, and lights shine brightly throughout LaGrange as we prepare collectively for our favorite holiday traditions. 

This week will be filled with those local traditions with the annual Christmas parade, performances of “The Nutcracker” and several local appearances by Kris Kringle himself. However, even as we rush about finishing (or perhaps just beginning) our holiday shopping, it is important to take a moment to enjoy the season and the people that we celebrate it with each year.

It is easy to get so caught up in checking off the places to go and the people to see on our to do lists that we end out appreciating neither. This December, we encourage all our readers to not just take part in your holiday traditions but to take a few moments to truly appreciate the friends, family and experiences that come with this short time between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

We’d also like to encourage anyone who doesn’t have a holiday tradition to start one with your loved ones. Whether that tradition is ice skating as a group at Sweetland on Ice, attending one of our many wonderful local Christmas concerts, baking Christmas cookies, eating too many Christmas cookies or caroling, there is sure to be a tradition that will bring back happy memories years down the road.

For those of us missing lost loved ones this holiday season, those traditions take on an even stronger significance. Simple things like hanging an ornament given to us by a loved one who has passed on or taking part in the little traditions established with them years before.

For anyone who needs a moment to morn a lost child during this Christmas season, we encourage you to attend the Angel of Hope Candlelight Memorial Service on Friday at 7 p.m. at the angel in front of LaGrange Hospice. The service gives parents a chance to remember their children while surrounded by people who truly understand.