This weekend we took the girls to see the Christmas parade in town. It was a nice, small town parade with lots of local people involved in the rides and contributing to the festive spirit. It was also the night for the lighting of the trees in the park downtown.

Santa made his customary appearance at the end of the parade, after which everyone was encouraged to head over to the Cow Palace for some free hotdogs, popcorn and entertainment.

While the Cow Palace is a great indoor venue located close to the route taken by the parade, the bovine odor inside was not conducive to making me hungry for the supplied hot dogs.. but I digress. Inside there was face painting, balloon animals and crafts for the kids. There was also some entertainment by a clown and some singing of children’s Christmas songs..

..none of which enthused Ellie with the Christmas spirit. That’s my girl! Bah humbug to the core.

Ellie’s friend Evan was there too and they had a great time with our glow sticks, which Joe and I were kind enough to share with the kids.

There was a very nice choral piece of Christmas music. Following that was a solo by a young fellow singing Felice Navidad.

Also for our entertainment, the Divine Dancers stopped by for a performance at the Cow Palace.

Joe didn’t know what to think of the Town Crier as he announced the grand finale..

.. which included a confetti cannon! Cannons are always good.

With that we headed home for more fun with the glow sticks..

which eventually made it into the bathtub! Glow sticks are cool.

All in all it was a fun night out with the family in the (mostly) fresh air.