A Storybook Christmas

On Saturday, after we decorated Butterfly's Christmas tree, we went downtown to see the Santa Clause Parade and we had a fabulous time there. The weather was mild enough to make the two hour stand on the downtown sidewalk most comfortable, but I would have preferred lots of snow and frosty temps. Oh well, I can always hope for those conditions next year. In spite of the lack of snow and warm temps, it was a festive wintry parade and really got us in the holiday mood.

The theme for the parade this year was "A Storybook Christmas", and all the floats followed the theme most creatively as you will see. It was a night parade, so a lot of my pictures turned out blurry, but I did manage to get a few almost clear shots to share with you.

We didn't have any big balloon floats or glitzy smitzy ones, but the cute factor was way off the charts on some of them I assure you.


My favourite was this one, "The Three Little Kittens Who Lost Their Mittens". Don't you just love the driver of the float too? She was all decked out in a pink pyjama type suit and added kitten ears to her hat. What a good sport.


This might have been the most glitzy float in the whole parade – a hummer covered in lights. I am not sure what the Story was behind this one, but it was bright and colourful and added a bit of glitz to the parade.


This was one of about five cartoon characters that marched in the two hour parade. Most of the floats were homemade like the Three Little Kittens one and really made us smile with their homemade charm.

One store did the Twelve Days of Christmas and had twelve cars, flat-bed wagons, trucks, and walking groups portraying the twelve days of Christmas. As you can imagine some of them were pretty funny. The Nine Ladies Dancing walked past us before I realize they were supposed to be dancing. The Ten Lords a Leaping were a hoot too. Ten guys sauntered by and when I yelled out, "Hey, you guys are supposed to be leaping", one lord started to leap while the rest of them just stood looking at him. The crowd cheered and laughed and he continued to leap down the street. What fun. It was too dark to get a picture of the leaping lord though. Drat!


This wagon went by with the number 11 on it and consisted of rows of big stuffed animals. I wracked my brain trying to figure out what the song lyric was. I couldn't for the life of me remember anything about eleven stuffed animals. Butterfly saved the day when she leaned over and whispered in my ear that it was Eleven Pipers Piping, and it was only then that I saw each stuffed animal was holding a pipe. Tooooo funny. I know the picture is really fuzzy, but can you see the white pipe the bear in blue is holding?

Yes the parade was unique and homemade, and an absolute delight. We love this small town we are living in. Nothing quite like it for enthusiasm and small town spirit.

After the parade we went back to Butterfly's house cold and hungry, and were pleased when the delicious aroma of dinner cooking in the oven greeted us when we walked in the door. MMMMM good, the perfect ending to a very festive and fun day.

Talk to you all later.