Christmas Parade

We always take the 1924 Dodge Brothers.

We get dressed up; I wear my once a year mink coat and Christmas hat (next year, I'm wearing some opera gloves. my hands got COLD...

We took Christie's kids, who were good as gold and have a standing invitation (Micah asked me if he could come next year...Please, Miss Chloe?, as his little sister poked him in the ribs and whispered "Ask her! I want to come next year!".) It's a big deal here. (6,000 people sitting on the sidewalk this year!) I have a little sleigh heater with a slide out tray with a chunk of soapstone that we heat up in the oven all day so I can rest my cold feet on it during the parade so I don;t get so cold. (it is not only dark, it is chilly, too. Did I mention that?) Some years it is so foggy that you can;t see across the street; this year it was just super dark.And crowded. 6,000 people sitting out in the cold dark night--the only show in town, I guess. Not a lot of vendors out. We were at the very front of the parade (like the first ten minutes) and home by 6:45. We've been way in the back (like entry #295)-I like being in the front better. I don't get so cold. I guess I've mentioned that it gets cold? Not like Canada cold or even Utah cold, but pretty darn cold for here cold. Cold and dark and damp and breezy. I have my coat and scuba diving skins on (sort of a leotard thing you wear under a scuba suit to keep you warm in the COLD water), jeans, a black merino sweater I KNIT MYSELF, socks I KNIT MYSELF and my sheepskin slippers with the toastie toes insert (you snap it open and it heats up for six hours.It's a ski kind of thing. They have them for your pockets, too.)At least we were waiting over in China Alley so I could get a
thermos of tea. I could live on that stuff. We don't do the fake wave..we do the real, look-you-in-the-eye wave..I'm still a kinder teacher at heart. Micah and Mia are first and second graders and waved like crazy people when people in the crowd shouted out their names (they are in soccer and church and what all, so lots of people know them. ) Plus they come from a huge family who didn't We were behind a gymnastics float...the kids would get off and do flips on the street. It was as good as the Olympics!