What Is Your Christmas Wish for Collingswood?

A wish is the simplest tradition of the holiday season, the gift you can give without spending anything but a moment of thought.

Maybe Christmas wishes are best dreamt by children (or starry-eyed grownups). Maybe the concept is outmoded. And maybe there's still some things we can learn about ourselves and our neighbors from the contents of our hearts.

We asked a handful of folks around town if they had a wish for Collingswood this holiday season. Here's what they said. 

At Main Street Realty, Paul Sciervo summed up his thoughts on the season nicely—“happiness and peace”—while across the street at The Pop Shop, Kevin Sperlunto joked that Collingswood could use more festivities and parades.

Frugal Resale owner Morgan Robinson had “less of a wish and more an appreciation” for the spirit of the season after observing its effects on a customer who had suffered a deep personal tragedy.

“Her youngest son died and her middle son is in Afghanistan. He’s been gone a month and she hasn’t heard from him since she left,” Robinson said. “She didn’t even want to celebrate Christmas.”

Then, the woman told her, thinking on the lights and the decorations of downtown Collingswood made her want to meet a friend there for dinner.

“Collingswood markets their half-a-million lights, they market it hard,” Robinson said. “It’s worth marketing.

“I get so excited, when you come home from somewhere and there’s no street traffic, and you’re in those lights. It is beautiful,” she said. “I used to walk home from the train and walking home in the dark, I loved that [the lights were on].”

Taking in the model railroad setup in the front window of Collingswood Hardware, Mary Beth Kosich and Lou Pesci said they hope families in town will find creative ways to battle the economic and emotional stresses of 2012.

“[I hope] that the neighborhood becomes tighter with economic times so poor,” Kosich said, suggesting that “more potluck suppers” might be a good way to bring families together in fellowship.

Pesci said he hopes “that maybe for a short period of time everyone forget their differences.”

Here’s what some of our Patch contributors said when we asked them the same question. 

Shannon McGill, who writes our "I Am Collingswood" feature, wrote:

My Christmas wish for Collingswood is that it continues to be a place that fosters the arts. I wish that more creative people will find their way to this town: painters, poets, actors, musicians, writers.

I wish for there to be more opportunities for artists working in different mediums to come together and collaborate on projects. Art installations! Music and dance performances! Readings of poetry and prose! Storytelling! Films! Photographs! A town literary magazine! A town radio station playing local music! A weekly salon where creative people can meet and talk and make things together!

These are my wishes for Collingswood. These are tough times, and art heals. I want Collingswood to be an oasis for thoughtful, sensitive people; a place where they can come to be encouraged and renewed.

GLBTQ blogger Robb C. Sewell wrote:

It’s been a challenging year for many people. My holiday wish is for all people to see hope through their tears and their sorrow.

In lieu of a New Year's resolution, he also added:

It is my hope that the residents of Collingswood, rather than bemoaning what the town doesn’t offer, will step up and fill those voids.

I look at what’s been achieved by the residents of Collingswood who sought to make a difference—efforts to unite the GLBTQ community (Night Out Collingswood), artists (Art Within Reach), actors (the Open Book Collaborative), educators and learners (ExtraordinaryED), writers and readers (the Collingswood Book Festival), to name but a few.

Come on, folks. You are Collingswood. What are your dreams? Are you ready to step up and make those dreams reality?

What is your Christmas wish for Collingswood? Tell us in the comments!