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Local Christmas Parades Show Best Of Our Communities

The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 7, 2008

Plenty of bad stuff swirls around us these days but all it takes is a look around every now and then to see a lot of good as well. These acts of kindness and wholesomeness are everywhere, if we take time to see them. There's been no better places to witness these things in the last week or so than in Avon Park and Sebring's community Christmas parades.

Small-town America is alive and well right here in the Heartland. It will continue with Lake Placid's Christmas Parade coming up next. At these places we'll see thousands of people lining our streets, all enjoying the festive moment as floats and marching bands and clowns and dancers entertain the crowds. It's a joy to see.

The atmosphere our communities provide residents is nothing short of wonderful. It demonstrates the best small town life has to offer. We see friends, strangers and loved ones with big smiles enjoying being downtown and being together.

A lot of hard work goes into various dance routines, decorating floats, getting all the floats situated and making sure everything goes off without a hitch. It takes weeks of planning to pull off a two-hour parade, but we never hear anyone complaining.

Our parades can never rival the giant parades held in big cities. They have too much money, glitz and star power to make a fair comparison. But our local parades offer so much more. We see excitement, pride and love from the people in the parades and the crowds watching. Our parades also serve to remind us that people here enjoy the simple pleasures of homemade floats and lots of cute children waving to the crowds.

Nope, no celebrities serve as our grand marshals and movie stars don't ride on the floats, but we don't need them. We have our neighbors and families taking on those roles. And when you live in a place like this, that's more than enough.

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