Christmas Parades

We in the South all have an innate love of pageantry, whether we admit it our not. That is why every little town has its own Christmas Parade and they are such a success. People, who would walk across the street to avoid each other on a normal day, will shout “hello” and wave until they nearly fall off the float speaking to the same people as they parade through town. They will throw candy to people they normally wouldn’t give a crumb of bread to if they were starving.
People lined up along the parade route who are normally staid and calm will scream for candy. They will jostle little children out of the way for Mardi Gras beads to turn their conservative outfits into Christmas decorations.
Christmas parades are the great equalizer. Anybody who is willing to march can get in. In our local parade that holds true unless you are a horse. They were outlawed along time ago when the Sheriff’s Posse was mounted in the parade. The horses left too many calling cards along the way. The mothers of the majorettes complained about the condition of their daughters’ boots. Horses were outlawed immediately. The Sheriff’s Posse wasn’t about to loose their dignity by being followed by pooper scoopers.
Out floats are all homemade. Some are quite charming. They are always judged by secret judges scattered in the crowd. Their identity is always secret for their own protection. It is necessary, as anyone who has ever judged a beauty pageant or floats that parents worked late into the night to build will tell you.
It was a shock to me to learn that now we have to pay bands to be in parades. I thought they were in it for the sheer honor of performing. I guess all that changed when every town’s parade started being on the same day. Now they hire out to the highest bidder. Consequently, there are few bands per parade. There were actually some floats this year with love performers on board or boom boxes. They can’t hold a candle to a drum beat and horns, but at least modern technology has made available alternatives to the bidding on bands.
The one float that I thought went too far even in the Bible Belt was the SUV with Christian Queen written on the side and the Queen ensconced on the back tailgate. We are all far too fond of our various and sundry brands of religion to be able to agree on one brand as being able to proclaim one of theirs queen. It is quite arrogant to assume that one outshines the others and just seized the title for itself. I’ll be interested to see how many brands of Christian Queens are floated out next year.
People stand on the side of the road where their child will be facing from the float they are on. One mother who was riding in the parade (not the Christian Queen) has bought specials toys to throw to her child and friends. I hope her aim was good or she’d have more problems than even the Christian Queen with the partiality issue.
It was a long assed parade. We are very proud of our fire departments locally. They win all kinds of state competitions. We have bought them many fire trucks. All of them were in the parade. I was glad to see children back riding them. For a while, the firemen were too arrogant to allow it. They had two excuses. One after the other – the first was that if the fire truck had to pull out and go fight a fire, what would happen to the children? That was settled by parents having to walk along and monitor the floats. Then they said their insurance wouldn’t allow it. We locals thought that strange since they were climbing all over fire trucks in nearby towns. I just don’t think they wanted to be worried with children until a few of them got pretty grandchildren they wanted to show off and all that changed.
Our local parade has had the same godfather for 22 years. It’s a lot of work to put on one of these. He was an unsung hero until this year when somebody had sense enough to make him the Grand Marshall. They didn’t have a Citizen of the Year. It seems that anybody chosen citizen of the year either dies or has a serious illness shortly thereafter. We wanted to keep the parade guru in good health because it is a thankless job.
Having small town Christmas Parade really is a great way to start the season. It is all about peace and good will even if it is for just