We had a really cool, surprise evening of fun today. This afternoon, a good friend of ours called us up and asked if our family wanted to be in the Holidazzle Parade tonight. Our friend works for Metro Transit, and part of his job is doing publicity for and and being in charge of the Twinkle Bus during the parade.
For those of you not native to the Twin Cities, we have this parade thing that happens in downtown Minneapolis every Thursday through Sunday from Thanksgiving till Christmas. They’ve been doing it for sixteen years now, I guess, and it’s not just a parade. It’s a lighted parade in the dark and in the cold, and there are people dressed up as all kinds of characters – and the costumes have lights all over them! And the floats have lights all over them! And it’s really neat and the kids love it, and there is always a crowd even when it is cold because it’s fun and exciting!
And we – we were very excited at the prospect of not just *seeing* the parade, but *riding* in the parade too. So we fed the girls a little early, put on our warm coats, and hopped in the van. We arrived in plenty of time to watch the floats setting up – in fact, we were stuck in traffic for a minute as the floats drove by from wherever they store them to their setup point and it was really funny because Joe said “Hey, look at that, the circus must be in town – it looks like a circus train!” And he was serious, and then I looked up and saw what he was pointing at and said “Uh, honey, those are the parade floats.” It was mildly amusing.
And then we got there and started walking around amongst the floats, looking for our ride. And I realized that, like an idiot, I had left my camera at home on the kitchen counter. So all I have to show you are these crappy camera-phone photos. So crappy, in fact, that Photoshop didn’t recognize the sideways ones and automatically rotate them for me like the good software it usually is.
Yep, that’s a pretty crappy photo, but you can see the smiling faces.
And we found our bus – all decked out for the parade. Those snowmen on top of the bus – they wave their hands at the crowd as the bus passes by. Our friend J. was there, being all organized and taking care of details. His son M was there too, and some other friends of theirs, who were also very nice. M and his other little boy friend are the same age as Julie, and the stark contrast between the rowdiness of the little boys and the somewhat shy observance of our little girl struck me a bit.
Our place was almost at the end of the parade, so we got to stand at the corner and watch most of the floats as they started off. There was, indeed, a circus train.
Complete with little “animals” that were just as cute as could be – those are kids dressed up in the costumes.
The Hansel and Gretl float was beautiful, except for the witch who rode in the very front of it – not visible in my crappy picture, but she was a bit scary. I picked Julie up and gave her a big hug till that one went by.
Before long, it was time for us to take our places on the bus. Here’s the view from the inside…Julie is looking up at the string which somehow I ended up being responsible for pulling – the string that makes the snowman on top of the bus wave at the crowd. It was kind of fun!
Joe and Sophie waving out the window. And somehow, Joe kept letting Sophie climb down the bench to sit with me, even though there was no room on the bench by me and I didn’t have an extra hand to hold Sophie on the bench (because we were in a moving vehicle and all). Not that I’m complaining or anything.
Really, it was a great time. Our friend even handed out little flashing buttons for us to wear during the parade, and to take home. It just so happens that tomorrow’s Show-and-Tell at pre-school is something that starts with the letter F, so Julie can take her “flasher” in and show it to her friends and tell them all about how she rode in the parade.