Small town charms

On Saturday my husband, being the fun-loving guy that is he, decided we should start a tradition of going to the local Christmas parade. We were fortunate; our town holds it during the daytime, instead of the insane small towns around us that have them at night. At least it was only 34 degrees while our neighbors were parading.

So rather than describe it in detail to you, I think I'll just leave you with some pictures so you can get a feel for the effort that went into this event (and I must say that I am grateful that so many people got up on a Saturday morning in an effort to provide some Christmas cheer for the children. Really, I am).

Started out with the honor guard and police car...followed by every volunteer fire truck that would participate (always a treat for my kids):

Tractors are picturesque, especially with Irv's Car Wash in the background:

I'm thinking he built it himself...

A lot of time and care was put into this number:

and this one

This guy was on his cell phone the whole time, and I saw several others multi-tasking in the same way

And my personal favorite:

Points for creativity with the whole speakers strapped to the roof thing, playing "It's 5 o'clock somewhere" which happens to be one of my favorite Christmas carols.

I grew up in a big city, but my children have no such expectations of fancy parades, and thought that even though most people were carrying empty bags around (we were at the end of the parade so they were out of candy), the fact that they still took home two mini candy canes and two small pieces of candy made it a pretty cool way to spend a Saturday morning in near freezing temperatures. Although Coop did ask us several times, "Was that a REAL parade?" So I think he may be on to them.

Baby T found most of his entertainment from this stick, until he chewed it to pieces and I had to dig it out of his mouth. Then he had to settle for the parade. I forgot his gloves so he's wearing mine...

Don't you wish YOU lived in a small town?