The Christmas Parade

I have unintentionally developed a tradition with Gail’s hubby, Puff. For the last three or four years or so, he and I have made a point to go to the Christmas parade in G-vegas. This has several purposes… but the main one being trying to get out of their house and give Gail some downtime on the Saturday evening of her busiest week of the year. So, this first Saturday in December, we tossed on our jackets and headed down to Main Street to watch the parade.

Float at the parade

So as we were standing there eating our gelato (I insisted I needed gelato to watch the parade) and watching the marching bands and floats move past in the December evening, it dawned on me that I had never been to a Christmas parade at home. Never. 4^th of July parades, Memorial Day parades, even a St.Patrick’s Day parade…. But never a Christmas one. In fact, I can’t think in all the years I lived up above the Mason-Dixon line that I ever even heard about a Christmas parade. Sure, we have them here in the town I live in now as well as G-vegas, and I can think of a few in other Southern states… but none back home. I suppose it make sense… I mean, seriously, I was standing outside at night watching a parade eating gelato. Yes, I had a jacket on, but it was still not miserable enough to not be eating gelato. Now, had I been at home, I probably would be so cold, I wouldn’t be willing to stay outside longer than to get to the car, let alone have a lovely chat, make jokes about floats and eat gelato. So it clearly must be weather related. So we will add another thing to the column that is a Southern thing: the Christmas parade.

It really was a nice parade too! A number of marching bands, dance troupes, city council on golf carts, cute little kids dressed up in Christmas costumes, karate-chopping Santas, some lovely and well-lit floats filled with Christmas carolers. It was a lot fun and a very fun Southern thing to do.

Yes, karate Santas