Photo credit: Shelby Wye, Harrow News
by Max de Liberato
The official start of the winter season is just around the corner, but the wonderland started early this year as community members gathered to enjoy this year’s Harrow Kinsmen Christmas Parade on Saturday evening.
This event holds nine years of history, and featured a parade as well as a meet and greet with Santa Claus this year.
The 2019 parade included between 20-30 floats, including a marching band and the special feature of Santa Claus riding in a horse-drawn carriage. While each float displayed its own flavour of unique design, the creativity of those participating was truly the most valuable component of the night.
“It’s Christmas time, a lot of people love Christmas lights, and love the whole Christmas spirit.” Pat Cox, a Kinsmen organizer of the parade said. “It gives them a chance to bring out their kids to look at the pretty lights, a lot of people go above and beyond for the floats and they’re done up really nice. It’s a pretty cool event.”
According to Cox, the parade has no cost to the kinsmen and also gave away a prize of $500 to the best decorated float.
“It’s really good. It gets everybody out. A lot of families will stop at some of the stores before,” Essex Town Councillor, Sherry Bondy, said. “They’ll have a hot chocolate. Some people from outside of our community that make it to other events, will come to our event. So, that’s good.They’ll get to see what we have to offer, how quaint our town is.”
Bondy said since Harrow is such a small town, everybody knows the people who are in the parade and that some years the parade’s turnout is only about as big as the parade itself. For this year’s parade, this was not necessarily true as the parade had drawn a lot of adult support. It appeared that everyone in the parade had two or three friends coming out to see them, for ‘tis the season.
“The Kinsmen are the main lead on the parade,” Bondy said. “And if they didn’t do it, my fear would be that we wouldn’t have a nighttime parade at all and it’s a lot of work to put it together. So, it’s great to recognize the hard work and the people volunteering.”
According to Bondy, the parade is of no cost to the taxpayers, which she said only adds to the fun of the parade. Cox added anyone can be a part of this parade as there is no criteria to meet in order to have a float.
From fire trucks to boats, to extravagant Christmas tree displays, to the big man himself - Santa, the Harrow Kinsmen Christmas Parade created a spectacle of the season’s greetings for family and friends alike.