“I am not suggesting anything big or involved. Surely we can put together a simple float in a week,” I remarked. “I have ideas.”
Jane tilted her head. “What kind of ideas?”
The honest answer was several ideas stacked on top of each other with lights and garlands involved. What I said instead was, “Tasteful ones.”
That earned me alook.It wasn’t disapproving but it was cautious. Like someone deciding whether to trust that I actually knew what I was talking about.
“You would need permits,” my sister Meri said. “And coordination.”
“I can coordinate,” I said immediately.
Jane smiled at me in a way that was affectionate and just a little patronizing. “Of course you can.”
That was the thing. No one said I couldn’t, they just sounded surprised that I wanted to.
“I think it’s a great idea,” I continued, because retreating had never been my strength. “We need to let people know the inn is back and that we are open. That we are serious about becoming members of this community.”
Serious was an interesting word to use about a family that communicated primarily through overlapping conversations and baked goods, but I meant it. It would help our image in the town of Maple Ridge.
There was another pause. This one was shorter.
“All right,” my father said. “If we are doing it, we do it safely.”
“I agree,” I said, nodding. “Very safely.”
Jane raised an eyebrow. “I won’t be able to give you much help since I’m working in the kitchen. Just how do you plan to do this within seven days?”
“I have most of it under control. I just need people to volunteer when they can. Maybe help string some lights,” I replied.
“Are you planning on a float pulled by a vehicle? You would need something with a trailer hitch,” Dad mentioned.
We didn’t have a vehicle with a trailer hitch so I improvised. “I can rent something.”
“Or you will have to stick a Christmas tree on top of our car,” Mom suggested.
She laughed, but I felt the familiar prickle under my ribs. The awareness that everyone was bracing for me to overreach. To promise too much and to get carried away.
I had done that before. I knew that I was prone to promise too much and not deliver. I also knew that learning didn’t happen if you never tried again.
“I will take care of it,” I said, and this time my voice was steadier. “I will make a plan. I will talk to the town. I will make sure it is approved and secure and all of the things it needs to be.”
My mother studied me for a moment, then nodded. “All right. Show us the plan when you have it.”
It was not an enthusiastic endorsement. It was something better. It was conditional trust.
I looked at my clipboard and wrote CHRISTMAS PARADE in careful block letters at the top of the page. Underneath it, I added FLOAT, then paused and added SAFETY in parentheses, just to be safe.
Leaving them to their renovations of the guest room, I went back downstairs to the lobby. Standing at the front desk, I wrote down a list of things I thought would be necessary to put together a float, ideas on a theme, a shopping list, and doodles in the margins.
Outside, snow had started to fall in earnest, the kind that made everything feel quieter and more possible. Through the front windows, I could see the outdoor Christmas lights switch on, reminding me that evening was coming.
I thought about how many people had written this place off. How many times someone had shaken their head and said it was a shame, as if that settled the matter. Buying the inn had been a leap for all of us, but staying with it had been thereal work. Every day, we chose the challenge of reinventing, renovating, and keeping it going as a business yet again.
I had watched my family move through the inn, arguing and laughing and adjusting plans on the fly. I loved them fiercely. I also wanted to stand beside them as an equal, not as the one everyone believed would stumble.
I added a few more bullet points to my list regarding permits and materials. I sketched out a timeline that did not assume miracles.
I had made mistakes before. Everyone knew that. What I wanted now was the chance to show that I had learned from those errors and not be defined by them.
