Snowflakes twirled in the frosty air as Jenna adjusted a strand of lights on her company's float. Her colleagues scurried around it, throwing out suggestions, their breath catching in the air as they made sure everything was just-so before Butler's annual Spirit of Christmas parade began.

Despite the frigid temperatures, thousands of people were lined up along the street waiting for the parade.

Some of her colleagues were prepping glow necklaces that they would hand out to the crowd as they walked down the street. Their laughter floated in the air. Jenna glanced their way. She wanted to be happy and jolly too, but her heart just wasn't in it.

Her husband, Joe, was overseas fighting the War on Terror, or whatever they were calling it these days. It was going to be her first Christmas without him.

While he was surviving the sweltering desert temperatures, she was trying to survive the frigid 20-degree temperature that wouldn't loosen its icy grip.

“The weatherman is predicting a white Christmas,” Jenna told him on the phone the other night.

“I'm betting on a green Christmas,” Joe replied. “Like Army fatigue green.”

“I wish you were going to be home for the parade. I'm actually going to be in it this year.”

Except she knew he wouldn't be home for either Christmas or the parade, since the military extended his stay.

A sigh escaped her lips at the memory, just as a snowball smashed into her shoulder.

“Hey!”

She turned and glared at Paul. “Are you done fiddling with those lights yet? We're almost ready to roll.”

Jenna hopped off the float and gathered with Paul and her other colleagues. They were the eighth float and somewhere ahead of them on the parade route the tune of a marching band signaled the start of the parade.

Slowly they started moving forward, walking alongside the truck pulling their float. She handed glow necklaces to eager children in the crowd. It became almost hypnotic the further they walked down Main Street. Excited voices called out and she handed necklaces over as her thinly-gloved hands went numb.

One block to go, her float paused as it caught up to another. Jenna took a minute to open more necklaces.

“Ma'am, I'd like one of those.”

Jenna's heart slammed in her chest as she recognized the voice. Her eyes shot to the man dressed in Army fatigues who had stepped off the crowded sidewalk.

“Joe!”

He grasped her in a tight hug and twirled her around.

“I can't believe you're here!” she said.

A grin spread across his face as he peered into her eyes.

“I told you this was going to be a 'green' Christmas.”

Valerie Benko of Lyndora is an internationally published writer with articles and stories in newspapers, magazines, journals, anthologies and e-books in the United States and Canada.She recently had a story included in “Chicken Soup for the Soul: Reader's Choice.”Visit her at valeriebenko.weebly.com.