Winter Holiday Parade in West Chester

Thanksgiving has come and gone and now it’s time to focus on winter holidays. This is my favorite time of year and my family and I like to celebrate to the fullest. We have our Christmas tree, wreath and new holiday decorations at home waiting to adorn the house. I have purchased ribbon and wrapping paper and there are even a few gifts hidden about the house. We have plans to decorate our tree next weekend and to start bringing out the rest of the green and red this week. We are now even considering getting another tree if could just figure out where to put it. Now it’s time to get into the holiday spirit with some fun filled family events!

One of the best ways to kick off the holidays, and one of our personal favorite traditions, is The MARS Drinks Old Fashioned Christmas Celebration. This year the parade is celebrating its 31st year and has grown from a small town gathering with a few classic cars and local groups marching Market and Gay Streets to an all out major event with Channel 10 newscasters MCing and roughly 30,000 attendees expected.

There is a full weekend of event planned for December 2nd-5th including crafts for the family, lots of choral performances, breakfast with Santa for the kiddies and the 2nd Annual Jingle Elf Run. The tree lighting ceremony starts off the parade, the main event, at 7:30pm on Friday, December 3rd (location to be decided) and will take just one trip around the course lasting until roughly 9pm.

Participants this year include Jason Castro (American Idol Finalist), Adam Joseph (NBC10), Karen Rogers (NBC10), The Margera Family and The Lone Ranger with his horse Silver. There will be fifteen marching bands, five marching musical groups, eleven special performance groups, forty two specialty groups, eight sponsored floats and numerous dignitaries. No wonder this thing is going to be almost two hours long!

Join me and my family (and much of Chester County, it seems!) this Friday, December 3rd, in West Chester. We can all start off Holiday Season 2010 right!