Dear Tinsel Post Readers,

There is a particular kind of holiday one can admire from a distance while holding a mug of cocoa with both hands and thinking, thoughtfully, I am glad someone else is managing the explosions.

The Fourth of July is one of those holidays.

Here at the North Pole, we do not celebrate it in the same way our friends in the United States do, for the very practical reason that our founding documents were mostly written on gingerbread, witnessed by three reindeer, and later eaten during a budget meeting. Still, each year on July 4, the Claus Communications Council raises a small flag in Santa’s Village, the Mark IV cocoa machine attempts a patriotic foam pattern, and someone in Sleigh Ops asks whether fireworks can be safely launched in subzero crosswinds.

The answer remains no.

We have a binder.

The Sparkle Question

The trouble with fireworks at the North Pole is not that we dislike them. We are a people of bells, lanterns, shimmer-dust, reflective ribbon, glowing snow, enchanted candlelight, and one ceremonial chandelier in Peppermint Plaza that has not obeyed a dimmer switch since 1842.

We understand sparkle.

We may understand sparkle too well.

The first recorded North Pole Fourth of July Firework Appreciation Attempt took place near Sleighport in what the archives describe as “clear weather, high spirits, and regrettable confidence.” One rocket went up. Seven sleigh bells answered. A shipment of practice reins achieved emotional awareness. Dancer performed what witnesses later called “a freedom-adjacent backflip.”

It was, by all accounts, educational.

Since then, the Safety Office has maintained Jingle’s Official Fourth of July Sparkle Protocol, which I present here for public service and because Buttons McSprightly has been standing outside my office with a clipboard.

Jingle’s Official Fourth of July Sparkle Protocol

  1. If it goes boom, ask Sleigh Ops first.
  2. If Sleigh Ops says no, do not ask the reindeer separately.
  3. Sparklers may be used only in Peppermint Plaza, over the regulation snow trough, under supervision of someone whose eyebrows are not currently smoking.
  4. The Mark IV cocoa machine may produce red, white, and blue foam, but only after signing the Nonpartisan Beverage Agreement.
  5. No one is to describe a firecracker as “basically a tiny sleigh engine.” It is not. We learned.
  6. If Doug offers to cut celebratory potatoes into star shapes, let him. Some freedoms are small, starchy, and precise.

A Holiday About Noise, And Also Listening

From my desk, the Fourth has always seemed like a loud holiday with a quiet center.

There are parades, yes. There are flags, brass bands, paper plates, porch steps, and children who run with more confidence than balance. There are fireworks cracking open the sky, which I understand many people enjoy and which I continue to regard as punctuation with ambition.

But underneath all that noise is the older thing: a community remembering that it was made by people who argued, hoped, risked, revised, failed, tried again, and left behind a promise large enough that every generation has had to decide what to do with it.

That is not so different from our work here.

A village is not kept by magic alone. A paper is not kept by ink alone. A workshop is not kept by hammers, cocoa, ribbon, or Mrs. Claus’s eyebrow, though I would not test the last one in court.

A place is kept by the people who keep showing up for it.

Even when the bells are too loud.

Even when the cocoa machine has opinions.

Even when the good work is smaller than a parade and quieter than a firework: a repaired hinge, a clean table, a chair left open, a potato cut unreasonably small because someone, somewhere, likes it that way.

Our North Pole Observance

So tonight, in Santa’s Village, we will do what we do best.

We will light lanterns instead of fireworks. We will hang red, white, and blue ribbon from the cocoa stand. Pip will bring something frosted and historically overcommitted. Holly will insist this counts as an event and take notes. Snappers Glitterbeard will photograph the flag at precisely the moment the wind gives it drama. The reindeer will be kept at a respectful distance from anything labeled “spark ignition.”

Balance is maintained.

And somewhere far south of us, families will look up at bright bursts in a summer sky, and for a moment the noise will become memory, and the memory will become belonging, and belonging will become the thing people carry home after the plates are stacked and the grass is full of crumbs.

That part, I think, we understand perfectly.

May your Fourth be bright where it should be bright, quiet where it should be quiet, and full of enough room at the table for whoever arrives a little late with the good napkins.

Joy forward, Jingle P. Peppermint Editor-in-Chief The Tinsel Post

P.S. The cocoa machine has requested a sparkler. Request denied. It knows what it did.