On a damp and dreary winter morning in Stafford Springs, Connecticut, Matt Marella waits patiently in the fire department parking lot for the next customer to arrive.
It’s a fine and natural product that he’s selling for the annual department holiday fundraiser. There are no frills or gimmicks—just a neat row of Christmas trees—lush, unadorned, and freshly cut.
Like any good salesman, Mr. Marella believes in his product, just as he believes in the spirit of the season.
There was even a time when he wished everyone a “Merry Christmas.” It was the customary thing to do. The neighborly thing to do. The way that his parents raised him to treat others around the holidays.
He doesn’t do it as much anymore—not in these politically divisive “woke” times.
“You can’t go anywhere and say anything to anybody—you can’t compliment anybody. You hurt too many feelings,” the 58-year-old volunteer firefighter said.
In the final days of 2023, Mr. Marella said that he tried to stay hopeful but sees only further division and conflict in the presidential election year ahead.
He still believes in the electoral process and America as a cause worth fighting for, as did his father, a U.S. Marine who died in Vietnam.
Regardless, he said it has become more problematic to express his opinions in public nowadays, less tenable for “old school” people living in a society where the rules of civilized discourse no longer seem to apply.
It was simpler—and more polite—back when he was growing up, he said.
“When I was a kid, we'd all be outside playing baseball and football and doing things. Now, the kids are on their computers. I blame a lot of parents for that,” Mr. Marella told The Epoch Times.
“The way people are raised these days is different. It’s a whole different world,” he said, with a touch of nostalgia.
“I don’t feel like I’m in the same country. It’s not the country I grew up in. There’s no respect.”
What the United States needs, Mr. Marella said, is a return to tried-and-true values and common decency.
But even with the country’s worsening inflation, urban crime, violence, homelessness, illegal immigration, and concerns over government overreach, these troubles seem a little further away in the reassuring presence of Christmas trees in suburban Stafford Springs.
“Things are a mess,” Mr. Marella said, “but I still have confidence in the American people to do the right thing.”
On a visual level, Uncle Sam would undoubtedly agree, towering 38 feet above the Danbury Railway Museum in Danbury, Connecticut.
Billed as the world’s tallest Uncle Sam statue, the famous red-white-and-blue American icon originally stood at the Danbury Fair from 1969 to 1981.
Its new home has been the museum parking lot since 2019.
“It’s a great landmark. We tell folks when they’re looking for the museum to look for Uncle Sam. They can’t miss it,” said Jose Alves, president of the nonprofit museum, a restored train depot on the outskirts of downtown.
“We even have an Uncle Sam nutcracker on our mantle.”
Inside the museum, historic railway memorabilia and Christmas decorations greet visitors, who marvel at the cheerful displays and the scale-model electric train making its way around a circular track.
“I think it’s a good break from reality to come and enjoy a little bit of Christmas—and trains,” Mr. Alves said. “There’s always a Christmas spirit. It’s just more prevalent around this time of year.”
The museum continued to recover in 2023 after a “very substantial” loss of $75,000 in revenue during the COVID-19 shutdown, he said.
However, it remains short-staffed, having lost “good volunteers to COVID,” Mr. Alves told The Epoch Times. “We’re still bouncing back from that.”
The museum’s goal in 2024 is to make further progress toward recovery, although the future is unpredictable, he said.
“I like to think of myself as somewhat of an optimist,” Mr. Alves said. “The negative is always in my mind as well.
“Whatever is going to happen is probably going to happen. The best we can do is roll with those punches.”
Ted Pelkey of Westford, Vermont, a conservative Republican living in a politically progressive state, said he’s been rolling with the punches since the town denied him permits to locate his business on his property.
The move would have eliminated the half-hour drive to Ted’s Truck and Trailer Repair at the industrial park in Swanton, Vermont, about 26 miles north.
“I think the government is out of control,” said Mr. Pelkey, who was having lunch in his office.
“It’s about whether you’re part of the club or not. They didn’t like me.”
He said the ensuing legal battle with the town over his permit application put him and his wife through the proverbial “wringer.”
“You get frustrated,” Mr. Pelkey told The Epoch Times. To vent their grievance, he and his wife agreed on a special project over dinner one night.
The couple hired an artist to carve a giant “middle finger” out of wood and mounted it on a 24-foot-high steel pole in their front yard facing the town hall.
Mr. Pelkey said he recently had the same artist create and install two additional middle fingers next to the original in clear view of the highway that runs past his property.
He claims that they’re the “seventh-most visited thing” in the state of Vermont.
“That tells you something,” Mr. Pelkey said.
For every 100 cars that drive by his house and the display, he said, “I'd say 92 toot the horn,” giving him a figurative thumbs up.
While some might consider the display objectionable, the town’s hands are tied as far as removing the exhibit without the appropriate zoning regulations.
It’s considered “public art,” Mr. Pelkey said. As such, it receives protection under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
“I’m not sure what the new ones went up for, so I don’t have much to say regarding them,” Westford Assistant Town Clerk Maria Barden said.
“I do have a couple of co-workers who keep mentioning they’re all lit up at night with Christmas lights. I’ve driven by a couple of times.
“It’s certainly a statement. It definitely gets people out here.”
Mr. Pelkey said the sculpture is an apt metaphor for the chaotic times we live in and the way many people feel about their government.
“My hope is we get a different president [in 2024],” he said.
“I think our world would be a better place with the one we had,” Mr. Pelkey said, referring to former President Donald Trump.
“I think life was a lot better—especially from a business standpoint.”
Mr. Pelkey said the display cost him $12,000 to build.
Was it worth it?
“Oh, god, yes,” he said. “This thing is classic.”
In Barre, Vermont, 50 miles south of Westford, hair stylist Patricia Wescom said 2023 wasn’t a good year all around.
“Terrible,” she said, while finishing up with her customer, Janice Boudreau. “The whole year. Everything.”
Rampant drug use, crime, tight finances—you name it, she said.
“I had two flat tires in a week. I was like, ‘This is nuts. This is terrible,’” Ms. Wescom said. “The new tires cost $140 each.”
She finds herself worrying more about her family’s future with the way things are going in the world, she told The Epoch Times. But she still supports President Joe Biden and the job that he has been doing in Washington.
“And I think our Gov. [Phil] Scott [a Republican] has done a lot. Nothing against him,” Ms. Wescom said. “I just hope it’s so much better [in 2024]. I'd vote for Biden again because I don’t want Trump.”
Ms. Boudreau said the illegal drug problem isn’t unique to Barre, population 8,450. “It’s the same all over.”
Both it and the unresolved border crisis are big issues for her.
“I don’t know how we can take in anymore—the ones coming from other countries. What are we going to do with them? We can’t take care of our own,” Ms. Boudreau told The Epoch Times.
Despite all of the political in-fighting, theatrics, and gridlock in Washington, Ms. Boudreau still believes in voting.
“It’s your right,” she said. “The trouble is [politicians] make all kinds of promises. Once they get in, ‘Who are you guys?’
“It’s sad.”
Richard Gariboldi, 80, owner of Off The Top Barber Shop in Barre since 1968, said that 2023 was a challenging year for everybody with “a lot going on.”
A lot of small businesses were lost after the government-imposed shutdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic, he said.
Next year, “I don’t know. I think it’s going to be a long year,” Mr. Gariboldi said.
“I’ve never seen it this way before. Things are happening right around here. You have shootings and drugs. You hear about it every day,” he told The Epoch Times.
“People aren’t working. They’re breaking into houses. It’s not the same. The work ethic for young people isn’t there anymore.
“It’s changed so much. It really has. It’s different from when I grew up. I don’t think people are mean to each other; they’re depressed. Especially this time of year. Winter is tough on everybody.”
All worldly problems aside, Mr. Gariboldi has no plans to retire this year.
“I like what I do, and I’m still healthy enough,” he said.
Driving east into New Hampshire, the rural byways seem to go on forever in the afternoon sun—past the frozen meadows and rivers and slumbering farmlands and evergreen forests caked in newly fallen snow.
Out here, one gets a true sense of the region’s vastness, the enduring presence of early U.S. history, and the importance of community in towns fewer and far between.
At the United Methodist Church in the small town of Warren, New Hampshire, members sit down to a hearty spaghetti dinner over coffee, soft drinks, and good conversation.
The town’s claim to fame is an authentic Mercury-Redstone Launch Vehicle, a 59-foot-tall rocket installed near the village green and church to honor the late astronaut Alan Shepard, a native of Derry, New Hampshire.
“A missile? There is some irony there,” Pastor Andy Tyler told The Epoch Times.
He hopes for peace in 2024.
“The war is what concerns me the most,” Mr. Tyler said. “Israel and the Ukraine, and how it could spread.
“It’s just a difficult time. There’s just so much division right now. Most people are worried about the election and the way it could go. People on both sides are equally scared about what happens if the other side wins.”
Church member Timothy Sackett said life in 2024 will improve if more people live by the Golden Rule.
“I hope that everybody can look at their neighbor and be kind to one another,” Mr. Sackett told The Epoch Times.
“Other than that, what more can we ask for?”
In the town of Rumford, in progressive-leaning Maine, 109 miles east of Warren, Gail Bennett said that 2023 was a “very disappointing” year, with stagflation and turmoil in the economy.
“The cost of living has skyrocketed. The pay doesn’t go up with it,” she told The Epoch Times.
“Everything costs more. Groceries—I can’t believe how much money we spend on groceries—and electricity. And heating oil. It’s all gone up so crazily. You can still get some good beef around here [at a reasonable price].
“The thing that worries me is the border and all those millions that have come in and what they’re doing to our infrastructure,” Ms. Bennett said.
“Already, we hear of Maine people being deprived of housing because these people get priority.”
Ms. Bennett looks upon the electoral year ahead with apprehension.
“I’m very concerned,” she said. “I don’t know if it will be the year the shoe drops and everything collapses.”
In the resort city of Newport, Rhode Island, 267 miles south of Rumford, the proud mansions on Bellevue Avenue have stood as monuments to the Gilded Age, from 1877 to 1900.
Most notable among these lavish estates is Seaview Terrace, a privately owned French chateaux-style mansion built in 1925 and remembered best as the setting for the 1960s television horror soap opera “Dark Shadows.”
Not far away, the meandering Cliff Walk trail runs parallel to these historic landmarks and the harbor that brings hundreds of visitors yearly.
Vincent Radke, a breakfast server at Annie’s restaurant in downtown Newport, said the tourism industry was good in 2023.
He expects that it will be the same next year with the “same spirit of the people.”
“Now is the slow season. To my surprise, this year is better,” Mr. Radke told The Epoch Times, before he turned to a customer and said, “Our pancakes are the best.”
In the coastal town of Hull, Massachusetts, situated on Boston’s South Shore, joggers and power walkers hustle up and down the sandy crescent of Nantasket Beach at low tide.
At The Saltwater Diner in the town center, Abby Winnett is busy serving the homemade meatloaf special to the lunchtime crowd.
Last year should’ve been better, Ms. Winnett said, “but I feel like it’s been worse. You still can’t afford anything. The gas went down a little. That’s good. It’s just the cost of living. It’s out of control.”
Ms. Winnett doesn’t consider herself a political person by any means, voting only “once in my life.” She’s not about to let the antics of the 2024 election ruin her year.
“I don’t watch TV. The less I know, the better,” she said, grinning. “I know that’s probably not a good thing.”
As far as opinions go, Rick at the counter said, “I’ve got a lot of them. I usually keep them to myself.”
He said that 2023 was good to the town financially, for the most part.
“Internationally, there’s a lot of issues. There’s a handful of people who are trying to destroy the world,” Rick said.
For a heady double shot of holiday cheer, the Sly Fox Tavern in Quincy, Massachusetts, 13 miles away from Hull, was the place to be on a Friday night in mid-December.
Co-owner Mary McKenna said she has no complaints about 2023. Business was good overall. The interior renovations from 2018 are complete and looking fantastic. She and her husband, Gerry, have just celebrated their 19th year of ownership since emigrating to the United States from Ireland.
“Health, people being happy,” that’s what counts, Ms. McKenna told The Epoch Times.
“Mental health for people that are working from home and support for the markets and businesses. Hopefully, they will come out of this.”
Just then, a customer dressed in a Santa Claus outfit walked into the bar, and the patrons began singing “We Wish You a Merry Christmas!”
The Santa smiled at the welcome reception, eased himself into a high-top chair, and ordered a pint of beer.
“I bought this costume for a party two years ago,” the Santa told The Epoch Times, and asked that his real name be kept a secret.
“I find that every time I put it on and go somewhere, everybody is happy. They‘ll say ’Merry Christmas.‘ They’ll hug you. They'll want to take a picture.
“Everybody should have a Santa outfit. Look at the response.”
There’s “no politics” in Santa’s realm, he said.
“Someone sees Santa and thinks it’s Christmas. It’s a happy time. It’s good stuff. It’s like when you were a kid and there was no politics. You put your tree up. You wrapped presents. It’s good stuff.”
