Here There and Everywhere

Pensacola Christmas Parade

Why do they groan? Why do they grumble and look annoyed when I say it’s time for the Christmas Parade?

Once they get there, they have the best time! Who wouldn’t? It’s all noise and flash, great floats and loud bands, dancing in the street, dancing on the sidewalk, seeing all our friends from church and school and waving to friends on the floats – throwing BEADS!

Even 1 year old baby N totally gets into the beads! “Beads! Beads!” she shouts and holds out her hands. She marvels at their sparkle as they hang around her neck.

Here is what I love about Pensacola. It’s been a bad month, with Ferguson, with New York, and in Pensacola 50,000 people gather peacefully and party on the streets. It’s New Orleans with our clothes on, it’s Christmas/Mardi Gras Family Style. We dance, we party, we jump for those beads – and then we pass them along to the children. It’s a long, happy parade, with every school marching band and Mardi Gras group, a local radio station or two, the homeless, the counter culture, drinks in open containers, church groups, neighborhood meet-ups, Jesus is there, with Mary and Joseph – it’s all cool.

When the parade ends, we all go home. Peacefully.

Some may grumble, but for me, they show up, every year, and we celebrate a family tradition, the Pensacola Christmas Parade.

AdventureMan and his helper went down early Sunday morning and pulled a great Bead harvest out of the trees. Little grandson Q carefully sorted them into piles for his friend Chris, his mama and daddy, his two other sets of grandparents and for his room upstairs in our house. 

December 19, 2014 - Posted by intlxpatr | Advent, Arts & Handicrafts, Christmas, Civility, Community, Cultural, ExPat Life, Family Issues, Law and Order, Living Conditions, Pensacola, Quality of Life Issues | Cox Pensacola Christmas Parade, Pensacola Christmas Parade