Christmas Parade

This afternoon, our town held their annual Christmas parade. It seems a bit early on in the season, but they have been doing it for 71 years and it seems to work out well. Entire downtown shuts down for this parade as well as the schools so the kids can participate. The best part is, I set up our chairs a couple of hours ahead of the parade (since I saw others doing it) and when we got there right when the parade started, we had a great seat. This would have never been possible in South Florida...our chairs would have been gone by the time we got back.

Our friends Lisa and Dori joined us to watch the parade

It was my first time attending a Christmas parade and I may have been as excited about it as the kids. There were 130 entries ranging from floats to cars to horses to bands, gymnasts, boy/ girl scout troops, businesses and churches. It took an 1.5 hour and ended with Santa's arrival.

Acrofitness, a non-competitive street tumbling place for children, had tons of children showing off their skills and did an awesome job with their float.

Mrs Claus...

We even saw some familiar faces in the parade (Amelia's teacher, our pastor, Ms. Katherine and her son and a few more)

The biggest float:

There were a few bands (mostly high school bands) performing in the parade but this one was our favorite:

There were also some mascots, a reindeer and some princesses:

And a couple more cool floats:

The grand finale: Santa with his reindeer has arrived.

We all enjoyed this parade a lot (the kids loved that they handed out candy) and I can't wait what else this town has to offer during the holiday season. I'm pretty sure I will blog about it.