Once a Reston resident

Dreaming of the Reston Christmas parade

I have actually never seen the Reston Christmas parade.  I cannot remember if it was always scheduled on the Friday after Thanksgiving.

During my many years of spending several days a week working in Reston, I almost always managed to schedule myself home for Thanksgiving week.

I can remember being caught a couple of times and having to drive up on Monday and come back on Tuesday, but that was as bad as I let it get.

While the picture in the post was taken in June of this year, it is a good approximation of how many people that I figured spent Thanksgiving in Reston.  My estimates were based solely on the highway exodus that happened every Thanksgiving in Northern Virginia.

I do not know which holiday first introduced me to stop and go driving on Interstate 81, but the memory stuck, and my Reston based kids have confirmed that much of Northern Virginia heads south for the holidays.

Still I can imagine that the Reston parade would be a neat one.  With a downtown modeled on New York, I am sure the parade would also draw from the Macy's Parade.

Also knowing that I have always underestimated how many people call Reston home, I am certain that a lot of turkeys will served on Thanksgiving Day in the greater Reston area.  I am sure Whole Foods has some special ones, and that Trader Joe's might even add their own unique twist to the holiday bird.

After all if the Food Lion in Emerald Isle, NC, population 3,651, has something as unusual as a turducken, then I can only speculate at what might be found at Trader Joe's or at El Supermercado over on North Shore.

I am now wondering if the Farmer's Market over at Lake Anne continues during the winter.  If so I suspect there will be some well prepared birds offered for sale there.

Thanksgiving is a great holiday.  It is a time to stay home and enjoy family if you can manage it.

While I am certain the Reston parade will great, I hope it is as much fun as the last one that I attended in Emerald Isle.  It was a holiday event like I remembered from my childhood in the fifties.  

No doubt it is a little easier to have an old fashioned Christmas parade in a small town like Emerald Isle than it is in a major town like Reston where expectations are much higher.

If you want to compare your Reston parade experience to the Emerald Isle one, here are some pictures of the Emerald Isle parade from Christmas 2006.

While it is often too warm on the Carolina coast to get us in the holiday mood.  This year is an exception, and I am certain that we are already tasting winter.

Unfortunately it has brought fall to an early end, but there are rumors of a high temperature of sixty-one Fahrenheit next Monday.  I might have to try another afternoon of fishing.

Happy holidays to everyone in Reston.

Not exactly Town Center

I can still remember how impressed I was the first time that I saw Reston Town Center.  It was a bustling hive of modern day American shopping complete with a skating rink.

It has been a few months since I visited Reston, and we have seen a number changes in the financial fortunes of many.

However, I seriously doubt that Reston Town Center will ever look as empty as Front Street in Beaufort, NC was when we visited earlier in the week.

My guess is that Town Center is humming along with Christmas decorations in place and hardly a parking place to be found.  If that is not the case then the country is in far worse shape than I dreamed.  Reston and Tyson's Corner are the canaries in the shopping and retail mine.  If business goes south in those shopping paradises, the rest of us might as well call time out for a few months.

Of course looks might be a little deceiving.  Beaufort is a coastal town.  Summer is the peak season here.  Right now we are watching the annual sailboat migration.  It is one of the reasons that we enjoy walking the docks in Beaufort.

We get more than our fair share of bright blue skies, but this time of year we can get some rainy weather.

My theory is that a little bit of rain just makes you appreciate the sunny days even more.  We have had great weather but also some cool weather.  All things considered I would be very happy to see our weather stay this way all year.

In all fairness Beaufort is probably not the heart of the retail district here on the coast.  I am sure if I took the time to go to the malls in Morehead City or Jacksonville, I might see a totally different story.

Still it is kind of neat to the see the heart of a city exposed and empty of real traffic this close to the holiday season.

While this time of year has a nice fall feeling, and I am having no trouble coming up with some concerns.  My fall thoughts often go to the challenges that we face as a country.

While I am not one of those people who worries all the time, I am concerned that we have as many challenges at this one time as I have ever seen.

Perhaps being a Realtor®  in a very challenging market has something to do with the challenges seeming so big.   My expectation is that things will be very different when the market turns.

We live in a fantastic area, it is very different from the hustle and bustle of Reston.  However, that very difference makes it attractive to people who like me have worked for years among the buildings of Northern Virginia.

Reston has a tremendous job engine which just does not exist here in Coastal North Carolina.  While we might be a Coastal Paradise for people who love the water and the beaches of Emerald Isle, we are not a place for young people who need a well paying career.

The coast is a great place to visit, but I also enjoy visiting Reston once in a while just so I can be in traffic long enough to remind me that I am probably better off where the streets are empty and the traffic hardly exists.

Check out our new Crystal Coast Electronic Village.  You might get a kick out of our events.  Where else can you find a trout seminar and wake up the next day and try your lessons on pristine waters?