An eerie quiet has fallen over the festive town of Leavenworth as holiday crowds have abandoned the snowbound mountain hamlet, leaving only a lone, tangled tumbleweed of Christmas lights tumbling down Main Street.
“Christmas is over and you don’t need our snowy white backgrounds for your Instagram selfies anymore — we get it,” said a sniffly Leavenworth Chamber of Commerce President Jonas Schmidt. “Apparently you can have plenty of fun with the white stuff in the Puget lowlands now. You don’t need us anymore.”
Schmidt says he knows everyone will always come back for the holidays, but in the meantime, the place can feel like a little bit of an empty ghost town.
“It gets a little creepy when the only people to greet regularly are some of the season’s leftover Elf Liberation Front members strutting in and out of the local saloons – Lord knows what they’re up to,” Schmidt said. “If people could just give us a call every now and then, let us know they missed us, and that they’re looking forward to the next visit, that would be nice. Just a thoughtful thing if they have time for it.”
Hampering the town’s foot traffic even more is an indefinite Highway 2 closure west of Leavenworth at Stevens Pass. Highway 2 east of Leavenworth is also closed due to an unusual avalanche of Christmas light tumbleweeds trapping vehicles.
At press time, an over-the-moon Schmidt was surprised to suddenly get a few calls reserving rooms for Icefest this weekend.
