I Love a Parade!

This morning dawned bright, clear, sunny and crisp - the perfect sort of morning for a parade!  The Macys' Celebrate the Season Parade passed through downtown Pittsburgh this morning.  The parade route took them past the downtown Macys location (the converted flagship store of the Kaufmann's chain, purchased by federated in the 1990's) which is just a few blocks from my hotel.  I joined the crowd along 5th Avenue to enjoy the spectacle.

The view from 5th Avenue and Grant Street while I waited for the parade - that's the Omni William Penn (where I'm staying this week) in the background.

All the staples of a good parade were represented: marching bands, local celebrities, horses, beauty queens,  police and firemen, balloons, clowns and shriners in tiny cars.  I enjoyed it immensely.  As it was a holiday parade, there was plenty of Christmas cheer on display and in the air.  The marching bands all featured Christmas tunes (one even played You're A Mean One, Mr. Grinch!) and, of course, Santa brought up the rear of the parade on an elaborate float.

What follows are some of my photographic highlights:

A band of firefighters playing the bagpipes lead the way - you could hear the parade coming long before you could see it!

Of course, the Mayor of Pittsburgh was close behind

Pittsburgh's metaphorical mayor came along shortly: Steely McBeam (The Steelers' mascot)

There was plenty of Steelers' black and gold to come:

Even dogs got in on the act!

These horses got a Steelers pedicure

There were many local celebrities in the parade:

Mr. McFeely (David Newell) is from Pittsburgh!  (In fact, David taught middle school english at a public school in Pittsburgh.  Fred Rogers was from nearby Latrobe, PA.)

The pirogies from "The Great Pittsburgh Pirogi Race" at PNC Park were all on hand.  (This is Sauerkraut Saul.)

As the parade was sponsored by Macys, there were giant balloons:

  

And plenty of corporate sponsorship:

Wendy looks like she's seen better days...

Everyone was getting into the holiday spirit, especially the marching bands:

This baton core went all out!

These poor girls had embarrassing enough costumes already: their boots feature taps and big, black pom-poms to go with their marabou trimmed skirts.  The addition of reindeer antlers only furthered the humiliation...

It is difficult enough to look bad-ass (as drum-line kids are wont to do) while wearing a santa cap, but even harder when your assigned instrument is the slap-stick.  This kid was one of two different slap-stick players in the parade; two different band directors thought that Sleigh Ride would be a good marching tune.

Of course, the Jolly Old Elf himself brought the parade to a close:

I truly do love a parade.  This one even got me into the holiday spirit.  I've been fighting off said holiday spirit in the belief that the day after Halloween is much too early to start hearing Christmas music and drinking eggnog lattes (Thanksgiving is a great holiday all its own and shouldn't be skipped over); but now that Thanksgiving has passed, I'm ready for some Sleigh Ride - even if it's played by a high school marching band!

JV