I must say that the '09 parade was one of the better parades in several years, although we didn't go to last year's. I also thought they did an admirable job finding a happy medium with the candy. Kids, at least, got an opportunity to get a few treats. Kudos to the Clayton Chamber for this year's parade.
It did seem like it got colder, but maybe it was from being out for about 1 1/2 hours. I wore four layers on my torso and two layers of pants. Double layers of socks and a knit hat so I stayed fairly comfortable.
I stuck to my guns and didn't go although DS was in the parade. They were at the tail end and didn't get done til 5:00. Still had to clean the trailer, etc. They finally got home around 6:00.
I don't understand why the police, fire and rescue were going SO slow to start the parade. It was seriously annoying to stand there and just stare at them sitting there blowing their horns. Was there a reason they were going to impossibly slow?
They need to have it in September when the weather is better, but other than that and the already mentioned lags we enjoyed it.
I enjoyed the colder temperatures and overcast skies for the parade. It felt more like the Christmas season. I think it was 2003 or 2004 that the temps were about the same but the wind was blowing and that was a rough 1.5 hours that year. The lack of wind made it tolerable. I've never been to a nighttime parade. I think I'll try to go to Smithfield's next year. How does it compare with Clayton in number (and quality) of entries?
We enjoyed the parade. I agree that the lags were a little bit long... Night time parades are so neat. When I lived in KS, they had night time parades and it was great. The floats had lights on them, the Shriners had lights on their cars, it was so much fun. I actually like them better than the ones during the day time. They did their parades the Sat after Thanksgiving and stopped at where the park was and lit the town Christmas tree at the end of the parade after Santa arrived and then Santa had a place to sit to where the kiddos could tell him what they wanted and there were vendors there selling a few things and there was hot chocolate and cookies. Dang I miss that!!!