Our Beachside Life: Our First Florida Christmas Parade

As a child, I remember watching the Christmas Parade as it marched down 2nd Avenue. The bands playing Christmas music, the floats decorated with Christmas spirit, the pageant winners waving to the crowds from the back of the local car dealership's convertible, the candy tossed out to all the "good" children lining the city sidewalks and of course, Santa. No parade was over until Santa came to give everyone a hearty "Ho! Ho! Ho!" Well, those are some of the memories that I cherish from my childhood and I want my children to have memories like that when they are my age. On Saturday, we watched the Cocoa/Rockledge Christmas Parade march down Florida Avenue. It was filled with the same elements that I remembered from my childhood. The main difference between our parade and the parades from my childhood was about 20 degrees or so. At a nice 75 degrees, the weather was good - slightly cloudy, but in Florida that can be a very good thing. We arrived at the parade sight and found a spot along Florida Avenue for our blanket. The girls decided to make themselves comfy before the big event. Our friends, James and Shannon, and their three children joined us. We enjoyed popcorn while we waited for the parade to start.(Thanks Shannon!)

The theme for the parade this year was "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle". There was no shortage of aluminum cans, plastic bottles, newspapers and other "recyclable" things. The floats were not as grand as I remembered them (but then again, I think sometimes we tend to remember things being a bit grander than they may have actually been). Anyway, the floats were good. Most of the floats were from the various Boy Scouts/Girl Scouts troops in the area. There were the traditional pageant winners waving to the crowd and the high school bands played classic Christmas tunes. And of course there was candy... lots of candy... maybe too much candy... (Audrey says "not too much", but isn't that the classic mom/child dilemma over candy?) The parade seemed to run a bit long, but then the end was in sight... SANTA!!! Riding in on Engine 31 with his reindeer leading the way, Santa was there (and Mrs. Claus too) waving to the crowds and greeting everyone with his hearty "Ho! Ho! Ho!"