Spectator, Spectacle, Spectacular

The Downtown Holiday Parade, and it didn't rain!! It's such a great hometown event: two different marching bands from middle schools were just terrific, the high school band and drill team blew everyone away with their boundless energy and great music (Jingle Bells played on bagpipes, segueing into Jingle Bell Rock, with lots of leaping twirling red banners), a collection of well-behaved dogs in various festive costumes, kids galore, a couple Grinches and some Santas and candy canes and great good cheer. 
The whole thing really raised my holiday spirits. Then my son helped put up the Christmas tree, which smells wonderful. Slight glitch when two strings of lights wouldn't work (what happens in the attic over the summer to cause perfectly functional lights to fail?), but we'll remedy that tomorrow.  In the meantime, HO HO HO to all!