This weekend was my town’s biggest festival of the year.  The Longmont Parade of Lights and Longmont Lights are spread over the first Friday and Saturday of December, and kick off the holiday season right for me.  Our town is a bit parade-happy, and we are happy parade attendees.  Saturday night, I and thousands of my closest neighbors attended the parade, wherein all floats are decorated with hundreds if not thousands of lights.

Last year the weather was very cold, with temperatures in the teens.  This year it was a balmy 36 degrees.  Unlike last year, I dressed more warmly (both Tater and I had our snow pants on) and brought snacks and a thermos of hot cocoa.  We had our chairs, an extra quilt, and our cameras.  The cameras were a lost cause, however, as they don’t take very good pictures in the dark.  I would love to share some of what we saw with you, but you’ll just have to take my descriptions for it.  There will be a few pictures at the end of the blog post, but they aren’t great.

The parade had the usual selection of noisy motorcycles, classic cars (this time it was the P.T. Cruiser Club), cowboys and Mexicans on horseback, and trailers full of football players (state champs, yeah!), girl/boy scouts, veterans, the Historical Society, and the Kiwanis club (sponsors of the parade).  The parade is also a time for local businesses to advertise themselves, and they deck out huge pickup trucks with lights and posters advertising everything from irrigation and lawn companies to mechanics and the local dairy.  My favorite paraders, however, have to be those that hoof it – the high school marching bands, the dance troupes (including the huge contingent from the local Hispanic dance school), the Newfoundland club with their big beautiful dogs, and the dancing holiday characters – gingerbread wo/men, snowmen, Christmas trees, Rudolph, the Grinch, and a dancing penguin.  Something we hadn’t seen in previous years was a group of men and women on horseback, wearing some traditional American West costuming of long coats, chaps, hats, and leather gloves, led by a wagon being pulled by a mule wearing Carhart bib overalls.

I’ll let that sink in for a minute.

Yes, a mule wearing Carharts.  They were cuffed at the ankles to show his powerful hooves, and went all the way up to his neck.  And he looked completely comfortable in them, as if a mule wearing pants were just something you saw every day.

Friday night, the day before the parade, the girls and I went to the Longmont Lights opening at Roosevelt Park.  Again, it wasn’t nearly as cold as last year; last year it was about 12 degrees.  This year, mid-30’s.  It was still cold enough for the ice sculptors to work, cold enough to want to enjoy the fire pits sprinkled around the park, and cold enough to find the watered-down hot cocoa they were giving away still warm enough to drink.  We indulged and had dinner from the food trucks.  Tater had a cheesy quesadilla from the Verde truck, which served a wide selection of Hispanic favorites.  I had a frybread sandwich made with slow-cooked chicken topped with a crunchy slaw and cranberry salsa.  The Perfect Child had lamb sliders, topped with crispy onion straws and cheese.  We all shared a vanilla frozen yogurt.

We watched the ice sculptors work and enjoyed some of the ice skating show that featured mostly young girls showing what they’d learned on our outdoor rink.  Costumed characters made their way through the area, and carolers and music could be heard everywhere.  There were reindeer to feed and pet, as well. Every tree in the 1-block-square park had been strung in lights, and there was no color left out.

The highlight of the night had to be Santa’s arrival by parachute.  Promptly at 7:30, three flashing blobs flung themselves out of an airplane and swirled their way toward the ground.  The park has a huge open space in the middle, and this is what the parachutists were aiming for.  Everyone in the park was gathered on the walkway around this open space, awaiting the arrival of Santa.  Each of the parachutists had flares burning brightly off of their heels.  Soon the first two landed in the big open area and quickly pulled their chutes out of the way.  Santa took his time, moving lazily about, the flares lighting up his green and red parachute.  Soon he was spinning dizzily, coming ever closer to the ground.  I think every kid in the park was holding his breath.  When Santa finally landed, the kids screeched and screamed and ran towards him, mobbing him.  Every kid entered the fray, in a frenzy.  I had never seen anything like it, and all the adults just stood and laughed and enjoyed it.

It was a wonderful way to spend our weekend, and Sunday we didn’t have energy to do much at all.  There was a lot of chilling on the couch, or dozing in front of our fireplace, as our temps were in the teens the entire day.  It feels like Christmas now.  I’m ready.

Heirloom Food Truck – this is where we got the lamb sliders and the flatbread chicken sandwich. 

Lamb Sliders from Heirloom.

Verde – I like their catch phrase.

Sometimes it takes three pictures to get a good one…Tater is such a ham!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 11th, 2012 at 9:56 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.