Festival of Lights

Each year, in preparation for the holidays, our relatively quaint town in Silicon Valley holds a sweet little parade it calls the Festival of Lights. This year was its 30th year and it gave us an excuse to bundle up the kids and head downtown on Sunday night. Despite the fact that this is hardly a world-class spectacle, people taped off portions of the sidewalk and placed lawn chairs starting early Saturday morning. It may be a small community, but it's a very type-A community.

We're not type As and we didn't tape off or blanket our piece of sidewalk. We had to settle for the dregs of sidewalk sitting, which was just fine. We staked our our own little piece of curb on State Street just about 20 minutes before the parade started. Time enough to get some coffee for us and glow necklaces for the kids.







It's mostly a parade for the kids, but now that we've got kids, it's really a blast to watch their mesmerized little faces. Almost makes me feel like a kid myself!












The parade includes a fleet of hand-pushed "floated" decked out in lights, several local high school marching bands, fire engines, police cars and a smattering of other marchers dressed up and waving.


The grand finale each year is the arrival of Santa, complete with his sleigh and reindeer. Almost makes you want to go get a tree and put lights on your house, doesn't it. Nevermind that it's still November!