The Best (Local) Christmas Parade Ever

On Sunday, the temperature reached a balmy 24 degrees. With winds. And blowing snow. It was a perfect day to sit inside by the fire and sip hot cocoa while playing Yahtzee! with your family. It was not a perfect day to sit outside and watch the local Christmas parade, which is what we did. Clearly we have lost our minds.



The snow pants went on, as did the heavy winter coats, snow boots, scarves, two pairs of gloves, and fur-lined ear flap hats. Yep, everybody in the family has a fur-lined ear flap hat. What can I say? We're very fashion forward. The hot cocoa that we should have been sipping in front of the fireplace was put into thermoses and we were off to the parade.  My love of parades overruled my great disdain for being cold. It was a weak moment. But I was greatly rewarded for braving the cold.


We staked out our little piece of paradise on the sidewalk of the parade's route and waited for the police sirens to signal the start of the parade.  It started off to be a normal Christmas parade, complete with police cars with their sirens wailing, local government people waving and begging you to re-elect them, assorted Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops, dance teams, and the freshly crowned State Champion football team atop a fire truck.  A normal parade. Until the llamas.


Hons, if you don't know this already, llamas are animals with attitudes.  I'm not saying they aren't a lovely animal, so don't write me letters. They are delightful creatures with very expressive faces. But I do question the sanity of the leader of the llama group who looked at his herd one day and thought "Dang! These llamas are a good lookin' bunch. They should be in the parade!".  Nine of the ten llamas were fairly well behaved. But that tenth one was feisty and you could tell that he'd been giving his handler attitude for the whole parade. At one point Feisty was facing the wrong way and he kinda dug it. Feisty walked backward for a few yards, got distracted by some horse poo that the Shovel Brigade had missed, and his handler (who was at this point sweating profusely and cursing under his breath) managed to turn him around so Feisty could match the rest of the llamas marching in the parade. Feisty didn't enjoy marching with the other llamas much, but he did have a rare treat of horse poo to munch on. That appeased him.  


I love watching the local high school marching bands in the parade. Some of those kids really got into the spirit of things and decorated their instruments. I liked the ribbon on the tubas and the tinsel on the trombones. The sax players went the extra mile though - lights on their saxes. It was a nice touch, even though it was broad daylight out and you couldn't see the lights twinkling. You just can't beat a saxophone all lit up for the holidays.


The highlight of the parade was a local bar's float featuring a pretty good local band, the Cheese Weasels, and a guy dressed up like a pint of Guinness. Beer Guy was waving to the crowd and dancing a bit on top of the float. Well, as much as one can dance in a Guinness suit. I guess he was more waving his hands and bouncing up and down, which does constitute dancing for a large majority of the population, but I digress. The Weasels were playing live on the float, really rocking out and jammin' away to "Jingle Bell Rock", when Beer Guy fell off the float. Fell. Off. The. Float. Right in front of me. He literally fell off the wagon. I thought it was part of the show. Well, until he rolled into an unsuspecting cameraman for the local news. Then I knew it wasn't part of the float and I stopped clapping wildly and got concerned for his well being. Those Cheese Weasels though, they are professionals. They never missed a beat and kept playing Christmas tunes, even though they'd lost one of their own. And by the way, Beer Guy was fine. That Guinness suit provided his body with lots of padding. Don't know if it protected his ego very much. People may always yell "Weasel down! Weasel down!" whenever he walks into the room. Wonder if the unsuspecting cameraman has posted the video on youtube yet ...


Now that I'm thawed out I have to admit that it was the best (local) Christmas parade ever. When else in life are you going to see a llama with 'tude and a Weasel down in the same afternoon? Pin It Now!