(The following was submitted by the Melrose High Bandaiders.)
On Friday afternoon, the band came to unload the trees but the trees didn’t come. On Friday night, the people of Melrose came to buy the trees but the trees didn’t come. On Saturday, the buses came to take the band to Gillette Stadium but the trees didn’t come. And on Saturday night, the rain came but still the trees didn’t come.
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When the MHS football team electrified their fans with a win over Tewksbury, the band knew they were in for a challenging Super Bowl weekend. But they didn’t know exactly how challenging it would be.
The annual Christmas Tree Sale had been scheduled months in advance. Hundreds of trees and wreaths had been ordered. What would happen to the sale while the band and their parents were at the Super Bowl? Right away alumni parents stepped up. Parents who thought their tree-sale-days were over volunteered to fill every shift left open while the current band families would be at Gillette.
But Friday afternoon, when the trees would have arrived like annual clockwork, nothing happened. The tent was up, the racks were ready and the students assembled in the parking lot. The truck driver would almost always call to ask, “Where is the driveway?” But the truck did not arrive.
The tree grower, in Guysborough County, Nova Scotia, was baffled. He had loaded that truck the night before. An investigation revealed that the truck was inexplicably just crossing the U.S. border. The band was sent home but a few parents stayed to wait for the trees and inform customers as they rolled in. The schools and the Mayor’s office kindly notified the community of the delay. At 9 p.m., however, as the rains began, the band parents gave up for the night and went home.
Expecting to find the wayward truck in the MHS parking lot, the Saturday morning shift of students and parents arrived to disappointment. More phone calls to the bewildered tree grower. Two hours later, a different dispatcher called. A new truck was leaving Canada and would arrive by midnight. If she knew the whereabouts of the first truck, she wasn’t saying.
So while the new truck made its unplanned journey from Canada through Maine to Massachusetts, the band made its journey from Melrose through Boston to Foxborough with throngs of other excited football fans.
Then, at midnight, after the skies opened and the relentless rain fell and the sad team and fans returned home, the annual phone call came: “Where is the driveway to the high school parking lot, eh?”
And that’s when the band’s fundraising nightmare turned into a dream. By morning the skies cleared. Tired parents and students unloaded 400-plus trees in an hour – with surprisingly big smiles. And the customers came back in droves. They laughed, they smiled, they expressed relief that the truck had arrived. And they bought trees. In less than eight hours the trees were gone. That is approximately one tree sold per minute.
The Christmas Tree Sale is the band’s biggest fundraiser. The money is used for scholarships, instruments, competition fees, buses, coaches and much more. It’s festive; it’s great fun. This year, more than ever, the sale was marked by kindness, concern, support and loyalty. Endless thanks go to the band students, parents, alumni, the school, the Mayor’s office and more than ever before, the customers.
At 5 p.m. on Sunday two customers pulled up to the sale site. They had come both Friday and Saturday only to find empty racks. Now the racks were empty again. Instead of an angry or frustrated response, the woman laughed and the gentleman exclaimed, “Good for you! We were so worried about you.”
Dr. Seuss might have put it this way, “Welcome, Christmas, bring your cheer. Cheer to all Melrosians far and near. Christmas Day is in our grasp, so long as we have hands to clasp. Christmas Day will always be just as long as we have we. Welcome Christmas while we stand, heart to heart and hand in hand.”
Thank you, Melrose.
