Thanks for the inspiration, guys!

Damselfly asks:

Do you love or hate parades? Any memorable parades for you? Or, are there any friends from your childhood you’d like to reconnect with?

Oh, the parade. I’ve got mixed feelings about them.

As a kid I remember loving them and my poor mom took me to every one that she possibly could.

Sure, the kids love them. It’s fun to get out with other members of your community and celebrate, um…carnies? Hip hip hooray, the carnival is here. Let’s have a parade and throw potentially lethal candy at little children. (Allergies, anyone? Hard candy a choking hazard much? Run in front of a semi truck lately to get a sucker? Is there any other time in your life when you’d pick a piece of candy off of a heavily traveled road and get your kid to eat it? It’s just wrong.)

That said, this year our family thoroughly enjoyed a Santa Claus Parade that occurs a few towns over from us. We brought comfy chairs and our own snacks (bagels, chocolate milk and cheese strings…lattes for us biggies) and enjoyed the wonder of many marching bands, real live horses and Santa Claus through the eyes of a two year old. It was fantastic. I was sickened by some parents running on to the street to grab dirty and death-causing candy for their kids and various other trailer-trashy behaviours, but the parade was awesome and so much better than the one that occurs locally every summer.

Waiting during one of the many exceedingly large gaps between parade entertainers.

Do I like parades? Theoretically, no. But anything that makes my children happy is a good thing. It should be illegal to throw candy, though.