Santa Claus is Coming to Town!
Or rather, he came to our town–last night!!
Monday night was the annual Christmas parade. Having lived in a big city, where there is no Christmas parade, or any other kind of parade for that matter, I find small town parades to be fascinating! And apparantly our small town is considered by more than just a few of my blog readers to be a rather large-ish town, because there were people from all kinds of tiny surrounding towns in our parade, their own towns being too small to have a parade of their own.
We had our two high school bands, plus three others from surrounding towns. There were definitely more fire trucks than we have in our city–in fact, some of us were wondering what those smaller towns would do if there actually was a fire tonight! “Sorry folks, no fire trucks tonight. You’re on your own. We’re busy driving in the Christmas parade two towns over!” There were boy scout troups, cheerleading groups, dance academies, and a few “Miss Wherever’s” shivering in convertables, with tiaras and perfect princess waves (DD3 kept exclaiming with wonder, “Look, Mommy!! There’s another princess!!!”). There were four red hat societies, which apparently are segregated as there were three white societies and one black one. The black one had better hats. There were several police cars, a hearse, a few wreckers, a truck with antlers and a red balloon nose pulling a boat made to look like a sleigh, and two undecorated cement mixers. A radio station truck, blaring music and with a well-known d.j. on top, hollering to the crowd, a half-dozen church groups with nativity scenes, some masons on speedy go-carts, a few veterans, and my friend’s very own Venison Club. They say that anybody with $20 can drive a car in the parade, and I believe it!
The parade this year was longer than usual, and the temperatures colder than usual. Those of you up north may laugh, but it was getting down near 30 degrees, and we were frozen stiff. Kids grew whiney, toes froze, and even adults were saying, “Enough already! Where’s Santa??” Finally, over an hour after the parade began, the final fire truck rounded the curve and we saw Santa standing on top!! We whooped and hollered and wished him a merry Christmas, as children scrambled to scoop up the candy he tossed. And then it was over.
We walked, along with two other families, two blocks down to enjoy hot chocolate and home-made pound cake and other goodies at the home of another family. It’s our third year straight of watching the parade with them and returning to their home for hot chocolate–I’d say we have quite a tradition going! We warmed our hands and mouths with the drinks, stuffed our faces with sweets, admired the new kitchen (built by the husband and painted by the wife) and visited with friends.
When it was time to leave we drove back down the parade route and almost felt surprised to see the totally empty street, with no evidence of the long parade that had passed through a mere hour before, except for the empty candy wrappers, a few mardi-gras necklaces with attached “Santa doesn’t pay ATM fees” buttons advertising a local bank, and “Jesus is the Reason” tracts strewn along the curbs. Finally we arrived at home, late for our bedtimes on a school night, tired and stiff from the cold, and with full tummies and warm hearts. It was a wonderful evening!