The Christmas Season is Finally Here- It's the Tweed Santa Claus Parade!

    For me the Christmas season really starts with the Tweed Santa Claus parade.  It's very small town (this may or may not mean a little lame), but I have never missed one.  I like walking down the street and talking to people.  I like waving to the people on the floats and knowing them, and sometimes having them call our names.  The Tweed Santa Claus parade means small town, wholesome to me.  It means our family is standing in the cold, cold but happy and together.

I love this picture

    I also love how excited the kids get.  The big kids were trying to get Elly excited.  They were making plans for who would run out and get the candy that was thrown, and what they would do with it.  Apparently I passed on the "planning" gene to the kids.

    Their little faces were just transfixed on the road, waiting for the floats.  Their beautiful little faces would light up when they saw a float that they liked.  There were points that their little arms were nearly falling off from waving.

    It would not be the same parade without the bands and music.  Whenever I see a band in a parade I always think about the story that Christopher told me about when he was a teen.  For whatever reason it gives me the giggles whenever I think about it.  He and his friends were watching the Acton Santa Claus parade (Christoper is an Acton boy).  I don't really know why a bunch of teen aged boys wanted to stand and watch the parade, but that is not really the story.  So at this parade, as is the same in the Tweed parade, people had thrown candy.  For whatever reason my idiot husband decided to tell his friends that he could throw a peppermint into the passing tuba on a float.  So being teen boys they all dared him.  He threw the candy, not really thinking that it would go in, but it did.  So the guy with the tuba shouts at him "Thanks a lot Ass#%#@!!!!!!!"  I'm going to be honest with you, I've heard that story a million times, but even as I sit here writing this, I'm stifling laughter.

    My favourite part of the Santa Claus parade is when I see the Duffer's Chuckwagon truck!  Every year they hand out little boxes of fries to all of the kids along the parade route.  Duffers make the most delicious french fries.  In the summer they have their truck set up in the Tweed Memorial Park, and there is always a huge line of people waiting for their fries.  So here they are handing out fries to the Tweed kids.  I like that Elly is still little and that I have to "test" her fries to make sure that they are the right temperature for her to eat.  Quite often I have to keep checking (i.e. eating her fries) to make sure that they are just right.  This technique does not fly with the big kids.  They are on to me.

    As I have already shared with you, I discovered later in life that I am a horse girl.  I really love horses.  I quite enjoy seeing people bring their horses to the parade.  I was most excited about the above horse drawn wagon, because we are booked to have a sleigh ride with them December 23.  Grace goes to school with Wesley (his family owns the farm).  He is the cutest, funniest kid, and I am so looking forward to our ride.  I plan to blog about both farm and the ride itself later this month, so stay tuned.

     The last float of the parade is always Santa.  The kids get soooooooooo excited to see Santa.  For me I am a little sad, because it means the end of this year's parade.  We walk home cold, but happy.

    This year I had made a big pot of homemade cream of celery soup before we left for the parade.  On our way home we made a little stop to see Jody at Sweet Temptations and bought some fresh bread and some treats.