Holiday Lights Parade
November 22nd, 2005
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Moorhead Firefighters spent several hours this afternoon
preparing Ladder 1 to participate in the Xcel Energy Holiday Lights
Parade.
Our winter Fire Department mascot led the way from the bucket of our Arial
ladder truck through Moorhead and Fargo to the delight of young and old
alike. |
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The lights will be used to decorate the station after the
parade.
Frosty the Snowman was cut to size and hand painted by Firefighter
Steve on A-Shift.
See the related parade story from the Fargo Forum below. |
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 Holiday
parade will be floating new look
By
Andrea Domaskin, The Forum
Published Sunday, November 20, 2005
 Santa
Claus is getting new wheels.
He’ll make an appearance in the Xcel Energy Holiday Lights Parade Downtown
on Tuesday in what downtown restaurant manager Monte Jones calls “a Dr. Seuss
kind of affair.”
Instead of the usual carriage, Santa and Mrs. Claus will greet parade-goers
from thrones on a 20-foot float with a Christmas tree and presents. It will be
pulled by a trolley filled with a dozen dancing elves.
The float, built by North Dakota State University students, is one of about
50 expected for this year’s annual night parade in downtown Fargo and
Moorhead.
“I just think it’s great,” Jones, of Monte’s Downtown on Broadway,
said of the event. “You should never lose your sense of childlike wonder.”
The parade will be marshaled by the Blenders, an a cappella group with Fargo
roots.
Now based in Minneapolis, the Blenders are scheduled to play the Fargo
Theatre from Dec. 1-4.
It’s the first time in recent years parade organizers named an official
marshal, said Dave Anderson, president of the Downtown Community Partnership.
His group is in charge of the annual event.
The parade will start at 6:30 p.m. near the Moorhead Center Mall on Center
Avenue. It will move into Fargo on NP Avenue and turn north on Broadway, ending
near Sixth Avenue North.
The crowd is usually thick in Moorhead and thinner on the Red River bridge
and on NP Avenue.
But once it reaches downtown, it’s several people deep on Broadway,
Anderson said.
Community leaders will host the lighting of the Tree of Hope in the U.S. Bank
Plaza at 8:30 p.m.
The tree is part of the Mental Health Association’s Celebration of Lights
to honor family members, friends and loved ones.
The event will conclude with fireworks over the US Bank Plaza.
This is the fifth annual holiday parade at night.
“I think what’s really fun is from year to year each of the organizations
that put floats in the parade are learning how to light them up,” Anderson
said.
Monte’s float this year will turn the business’s “M” logo into a set
of mountain peaks with a reindeer sliding down it.
Two people dressed as champagne glasses also will walk along side the float.
That’s if the weather allows. This is Fargo, after all.
“I’m counting on all the weather folks to deliver mid-30s to 40s,”
Anderson said.
Readers can reach Forum reporter Andrea Domaskin at (701) 241-5556
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