Madhouse diaries : The Christmas Parade

Last weekend, on a bitterly cold evening, we wrapped up in scarves, coats and thick jumpers and headed into town to see the traditional Christmas parade. We chose to watch it opposite the big wheel that is part of the festive decor, so that we could take in the pretty lights while we waited.

As well as nine floats, there were hundreds of participants dressed up in festive costumes, walking, dancing and waving their way along the route.

Santa's elves led the way, followed by everything from alphabet blocks, chimney sweeps and Eskimos to gingerbread men ...

... as well as my favourites, the reindeer and polar bears, which were very cute.

With the accompanying music, it all felt very much like a Disney parade and you couldn't help but get swept up in the Christmas spirit.

The larger than life Eskimo fishing in the ice kept waving at us and doing thumbs-up when the traffic got held up just next to us, which made us laugh. 

The kids laughed that Mother Christmas's turkey was even bigger than Nanny's !

It's hard to really show it off with photos taken in the dark, but the ice queen or snow fairy or whatever she was had a long flowing dress that attached to the ice crystals and they were all lit up from the inside, which looked quite spectacular.

I'm not sure who had the biggest smiles - the spectators or the people taking part !

There was a squeal of excitement as the "flying" reindeer announced the star guest ...

Good Old Father Christmas closed the show.

Happy faces all round !

Especially when Juliette realised she had enough money in her pocket to buy a "chocolate kebab" - a pancake filled with chocolate sauce, squirty cream and real slivers of chocolate sliced off the turning "kebab" !