TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Highlands Today

Crowds Jam Downtown Sebring For Christmas Parade

MARC VALERO/Highlands Today

Santa and Mrs. Claus finished Sebring’s Christmas parade Friday.

ADVERTISEMENT

By MARC VALERO | Highlands Today

Published: December 9, 2007

SEBRING — Everyone staked out their spot for a good view or to be close at hand to grab some candy tossed to the crowd Friday evening at Sebring's Christmas parade.

With the younger ones in shirt sleeves and the young at heart in light sweaters, weather-wise it didn't feel like a visitor from the North Pole with a long white beard and big red coat could be jolly in downtown Sebring. But plenty of red and green, twinkling lights, smiles and waving hands and music and marchers proved the holiday spirit had arrived.

First things first though – before the parade, a countdown heightened the excitement to the official lighting of the Circle of Lights. Starting at 10, the crowd joined in at number eight to the completion of the countdown, which brought cheers and applause as the circle came to life with thousands of colorful lights.

Then Sebring's "Rockin' Christmas" parade started rollin'.

"We just like to come to the parade and have a good old time," said Bill Whitcomb of Avon Park. "It's quite a crowd."

He estimated the Avon Park Christmas parade had about 20,000 spectators, but believed there was twice as many at Sebring's parade.

Whitcomb noted that the parade seemed longer than in the past as it hit the 90-minute mark, but the end was only a few minutes away with Santa and Mrs. Claus bringing the joyous evening to a close.
Then there was the usual bumper-to-bumper rush to leave downtown for those who could find where they parked.

Where's Pomegranate? a man in his 20s asked after the parade.

"I parked on Pomegranate, but I don't know where that is."

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT