Livingston Christmas Parade

At the Livingston State Park potluck and business meeting last month, it was suggested that we enter the Christmas Parade this year. Several people agreed to work on the float.

The Float

The park's logo

Stephan in Kayak

Stephan had experience in building a float. He offered to ramrod the project. He got together with a few volunteers and came up with the idea of Christmas in Lake Livingston State Park. All materials that were used were from the park. He had sticks piled up to look like a fire. It had a red glow to it. There were tree stumps to sit on, so that the children would ride safely . There were 7 children and 3 adults aboard, plus there was a kayak in the front which Stephan rode in. There was a tree on each side that had lights . They put blue lights under the kayak and had aluminum foil behind it so that it reminded you of water. Stephanie free handed a sign that is the parks motto, "Life's Better Outdoors". It was taped on the back of the float. They also had a wooden sign on both sides of the float that spelled out LAKE LIVINGSTON STATE PARK.

Our evening began at 4:30. I picked up Dianne (volunteer park host) and she directed me to the 1st baptist church parking lot in Livingston. Sheldon, Melissa, John (her husband ) and her girls, plus Stephan, were doing the last minute arranging on the float. Melissa, Dianne and I rode with Sheldon to the line up area and were handed a number for our entry.I am not sure how they judged the entries, but I am sure I will hear who got what awarded. We sat in line till almost 6:00 waiting for the parade to begin. There were quite a few entries.
We saw sponge bob, bugs bunny, elves, angels , boy scouts, girl scouts, volunteer fire departments, electric companies, adult daycare center, baptist church. I was able to snap quite a few pictures of the entries.

We started to move at 6:00. Melissa and Ronnie ( park interpreter) walked (or shall I say ran) on the left side and Dianne and I were on the right side of the float. We were not allowed to throw candy to anyone but we could hand it to them . Needless to say we got left in the dust many times. We ran out of candy before we even got to the courthouse. Since there was no candy left we started shouting MERRY CHRISTMAS and waving our arms. I don't know how anyone else felt but, shouting out Merry Christmas and the crowd shouting it back made me feel in the Christmas mood. As we turned off the main drag, we started singing jingle bells. We only sang one verse. Shortly after that I heard a group of percussionists playing. In honor of my daughter, Heather, I started to strut while walking. I strutted so fast I was ahead of my group and when they stopped playing I had to walk back a to my float. The guys in the adult day care center, the float ahead of us, enjoyed my strut.

By 6:30 we were at the end of the parade. I climbed into Sheldon's truck and he took everyone back to the drop off point. We were taken back to the baptist church so that we could get the car. Traffic was busy, so we stayed around and undecorated our entry a bit so that we could get it back in one piece. We were back home by 7:45. A good time was had by all.


MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE,

AND PEACE TO HIS PEOPLE ON EARTH.