CHRISTMAS IN MIDDLEBURG, ESPECIALLY the celebration on Saturday morning, is tradition-filled, charming, horsey, small-town-hospitable, festive, and everyone’s Hallmark-movie idea of exactly what “the most wonderful time of the year” ought to be like. The whole town turns out to celebrate and thousands of visitors join us. The Methodist Church sets up a sidewalk stand and passes out hot chocolate to keep folks warm, the community center hosts an all-day craft fair, and a deejay across the street from the Red Fox Inn plays Christmas music you can hear the length of Washington Street. Noah Seely dresses up as Santa for a family pancake breakfast and a “visit with Santa” for the kids at the community charter school. Food trucks behind Blue Ridge Federal catch the business that restaurants and cafes are too crowded to handle. No one starves at Christmas in Middleburg.

Quinn and I arrived early enough Saturday morning to find a parking space in a large meadow off North Pendleton Street—the only parking area within walking distance to town.

“It’s cold,” Quinn said, picking up a program from a pile of newspapers lying next to an old oak tree as we left the parking lot and stuffing it under his arm.

“I know, but it’s going to be a gorgeous winter day—sunshine, blue skies, perfect weather,” I said. “I’ve been here years when it poured rain or blizzarded. We’re lucky.”

“What do you want to do?” Quinn asked.

“Get some hot chocolate and then stake out a good viewing spot from the parking lot so Hope and Zach can see the hounds and horses as they canter up the street to the Red Fox,” I said. “I promised Eli and Sasha we’d save them a place.”

Until a few years ago, watching the Hunt and Hound Review meant lining up on either side of the street and waiting until the Goose Creek Hunt’s Huntsman, resplendent in his pinks and black helmet, appeared with a joyful pack of forty or so tail-wagging foxhounds, followed by over a hundred beautifully turned out horses and their riders dressed in their best attire. Unfortunately one year the crowd got too close to the hounds, which promptly got the dogs overexcited. Before the Huntsman or Whippers-In could regain control of the situation, the hounds had made their way onto the sidewalk and detoured through the open doors of some of the shops. A wagging tail can do a lot of accidental damage to fragile French china or a jewelry display. The resulting pandemonium changed the parade set-up in perpetuity: now there were barricades on either side of Washington Street with a few designated places for crossing from one side to the other.