Parade

I went for a walk this afternoon and happened across a big Christmas parade winding its way through the park.  In honor of the lighting of the giant Christmas tree there, perhaps?  So I decided to forego my walk in honor of watching the parade.

It was interesting.  I stood beside a taxi with the driver sound asleep in the front seat and a car with a really touchy alarm system that went off every once in a while as people walked past it.  I enjoyed the marching bands.  My favorite was the one with people marching in military style at the front.  Every so often firecrackers were set off around them to sound like gun fire.  Very interesting.  There was float shooting out what appeared to be a light spray of fake snow (but was really just tiny little pieces of paper).  They had the characters from the movie Up! as well as Papa Smurf in a Santa hat.  There were dance crews and floats with advertisements (all throwing out candy).  And then there were the costumes...I have to admit, as a foreigner, that the costumes left me confused.  It kind of looked like somebody raided the costume stores to use whatever was available, but maybe there was a some connection between them that, not being from here, I simply failed to understand.  Like the grown men dressed like elves that had something in their mouths that, from a distance, resembled cigarettes.  Or the girls in black dresses and wigs and candy-corn hats (that looked like they belonged in a Halloween parade instead of Christmas).  And the group of women wearing plastic masks that (I think) were intended to look like Barbie dolls.  (The rows of expressionless faces reminded me more of something from the movies--the Stepford wives or something.)  And my personal favorite: the Vikings/cavemen, a few of which appeared to have hints of clown makeup on their masks, who danced their way down the street to the beat of the music.  My best guess is that they were supposed to be dressed as the toys children would want to receive for Christmas, but I'm really not sure.

All in all, it was fun, though.  A fun prelude to what is coming at Christmas.