Christmas Boat Parade

Christmas parades. Once a person’s attained a certain age we’ve probably all had enough of parades, unless you change it up. How about a Christmas parade of decorated boats? This past weekend Team Klem saw just such a parade. Kind of fun.

We were novices at such an event and so had little idea as to the heavy draw a boat parade could bring. We allotted a single hour of drive time when two would have been more appropriate. But we won’t dwell on the unpleasantness of a long slow drive with two restless squabbling kids in the back seat. We were late, so available parking spaces were long ago extinguished by the time we arrived.

I dropped off Team Klem at the party destination and got back in the car to complete the quest for parking. I parked the car a mile away, wrote down the address and cross street where I parked, took off my shirt, and started jogging. Enjoy that amusing visual. Guy wearing jeans and belt with shirt and sweater in hand jogging down the street. What’s life if you can’t make a spectacle of yourself once in a while and laugh about it?

‘You stripped down why,’ you rightfully query. The event was nearly underway and I wanted not to miss it having endured already a rugged drive, so I decided to jog. I also hoped this shirtless precaution would minimize my outwardly sweaty cool-down upon arrival and before socializing would be engaged. Result: It helped but did not negate.

Once at the destination, good times. A small gathering of good friends, delicious grub, and cups of hot cocoa. We walked to the beach and watched the Christmas boats float by.

I’m no sailor, but it looked like chaos out on the water. Some boaters were clearly moving too fast while some boaters had no decorations at all and were trying to float in the middle of the waterway for a ‘front row’ viewing. This created a significant and dangerous logjam. For a while we stood at attention expecting to hear the cracking fiberglass of collision. To our surprise, only close calls.

[video removed by klem on 12/12/2012]


A peaceful and safe Christmas week to you.
-klem