Christmas parade comes to the valley – a week behind schedule
RUMFORD – A week after being postponed for the first time in its 12-year history, the Christmas in the Valley Parade made its annual tour of Dixfield, Mexico, and Rumford Sunday.
Sponsored by the River Valley Chamber of Commerce, the parade featured a long line of colorful floats decorated by businesses, non-profits and even families.
Each year the parade committee, a sub group of the Chamber, chooses an overall theme for the event. This year’s theme, the World of Disney, was chosen because of several requests submitted by people interested in the parade. Onlookers saw characters from Beauty and the Beast, Lady and the Tramp, and Winnie the Pooh waving and passing out candy.
Floats were followed by fire trucks, police cars and ambulances. With lights flashing and sirens blaring, they served to escort to the parade’s guest of honor, Santa Clause. True to his nature, Santa wrapped up the parade by sitting down with dozens of children to find out how good they had been and what they wanted for Christmas.
Organizers were pleased with the way the event turned out, but it took more planning than usual due to last week’s snowstorm.
Normally the parade is scheduled for the first Sunday in December.
According to Tammi Lyons, co-chair of this year’s parade committee, weather was never much of a concern before. “It’s always gone on, rain, snow or shine,” she said, “but we’ve never had three feet of snow.”
Lyons and several others had to reschedule and reorganize the event in just a day or two. It was nearly canceled.
“A lot of people in the parade had already planned around it,” she noted. As a result, some of the floats had to be pulled and many volunteers had to attend other obligations. Lyons was not sure if the parade could be saved, but the committee called on the community for assistance.
“We sent a massage telling people that we needed help or it wasn’t going to happen this year,” she said.
The committee got a big response from people willing to help, according to Lyons, and not just volunteers.
“The police and fire chiefs, and the town officials were outstanding,” she said. One police chief changed his personal plans to help with crowd control. “They were very accommodating.”
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