The cancellation of Merritt’s Country Christmas comes as a hard, yet inevitable blow to the community.

I can’t imagine how tough a decision that must have been for what I know must be a hardworking committee. For months now, it has not even been newsworthy to write about the cancellation of most events going on in the community.

We have even completely rearranged our usual community board page at the Herald to instead promote a local business each week, tired of simply typing “_____ CANCELLED”.

Yet the need to cancel what is such a staple event to the community goes to show the grave situation of the pandemic more than most others: and that we are not even close to out of the woods yet.

It’s July. It is almost unfathomable to think that an event five months from now has to be cancelled, yet, here we are. What a world we live in now where the community will not even be able to gather this holiday season to experience a town tree lighting together.

I have no idea what sort of planning would go into creating such an event, but I’m sure the planning started the second the parade ended in December of 2019. My heart goes out to the Country Christmas committee. I am sure that bringing back the festival in 2021 will be even more special now to the community.