Santa Goes Green

When it comes to Christmas, there are certainly a lot of traditions. Of course, some traditions change or grow over time while some continue steadfastly over the years. Some traditions develop out of love or friendship. Some are advertised by commercial marketers. Some, like my family's tradition of putting the angel on top of the tree using yardsticks are bred out of absurdity and strange nostalgia.

One Phoenix tradition I got to experience this year was the annual Holiday Light Parade. Which overall, was actually better than what I expected... floats covered in lights, cars fully covered in lights, even light-up and glowing marching bands! In a word, it was cool.

However, I'm sure you've figured out by now that the Light Parade itself is hardly blog worthy. Therefore, I have to tell you that the theme chosen for this year's parade was "going green." Even before I went to the parade I couldn't help but wonder if this blatant oxymoron was as evident as I thought. And why does there need to be a theme anyway, isn't the theme "light parade?"

Okay so the "green" light parade involved thousands and thousands of stands of Christmas lights. At least 25 slowly moving cars, trucks, and trailers and about 10 generators.* Each band member was required to wear 8 battery packs. I can only wonder where all those glow sticks ended up after the parade was over.

Of course, the "greenest" float in the parade was also the most boring. They may have gotten the theme right, but I could tell those float riders yearned for 100 more strands of multicolored majesty.

I'm guessing this was one tradition that could have done without change. Solar-powered flashlights anyone?

*See previous entries about making up statistics.