Commentary By Danielle Pelkey

The North Jefferson News



This past week I had the privilege of being in the Gardendale Christmas parade.

My parents’ ministry, “Ain’t God Good Mini-stries,” had a float in the parade. Actually it wasn’t a float, it was a big yellow boat and a big red truck.

The weather wasn’t too cold, so I bundled Raygan up in four layers of clothes and held her close to me as we rode in the back of the truck, waving to all the on-lookers.

At the beginning of the parade route, people looked excited to see us coming. We were handing out tracts and bottles of water. By the end of the parade people just looked annoyed.

No one was waving and that was a little sad. I don’t know if it was disappointment at the lack of candy or if they were tired of the 100-float parade, but people just looked miserable.

At the beginning, people shouted at us and laughed as we went by, but it seemed to have lost its magic by the end. I guess another issue is that we ran out of water.

When you have nothing to offer, people don’t like you as much, and I don’t blame them.

I’ve been in a few parades in my life and before that, I never really understood what all went into being in a parade.

Of course you have to decorate a float and find a truck big enough to pull it. You must then decide who will be invited to participate in the parade with you and where you will put these people.

This year, we had about 30 kids piled up in the boat and about 25 people walking beside the truck to hand out the goodies.

The part that no one ever bothers to mention is waiting for the parade to begin. We were told that the floats were a first come, first go basis. That turned out not to be the way it went, but no harm done.

My dad got to the location of the blast off for the parade around 3:30 p.m. Keep in mind the parade didn’t start until 6 p.m.

The riders and walkers were to arrive no later than 5 p.m., which didn’t sound so bad. However, we were pushed to the back of the parade route, so we didn’t shove off until after 6:30 p.m. That’s an hour and a half of sitting and trying to contain a lot of kids in one boat.

There is one big lesson we learned this year — don’t let the kids get situated too early.

My little niece, Lexi, started crying because the other floats were going before us. She continued to cry until our truck started moving, about 30 minutes later.

It was all okay though — by the time we saw the first on lookers, she wasn’t worried about who was in front of her anymore.

Another good part of the parade this year was that people were giving out free popcorn and hot chocolate. That was a great touch. I want to personally thank the people who went out of their way to bless us with hot cocoa on a cool night.

The weather was great. Most of the moods were great too. So for the most part, I greatly enjoyed the parade this year. The only bad thing about being in a parade is that you don’t get to watch all of the other floats. Maybe next year we will camp out with our chairs on the side of the road and watch. Who doesn’t like a parade?