The Colorado State Open Thread is delivered to you in order to stimulate your senses of imagination, thought, creativity and, sometimes a little wonder. Oh, and since it’s an open thread, if that doesn’t happen, you can make your own dreams come true.
I have been hinting for a couple weeks at least that I would be playing not The Former Guy, not the Current Guy, but the timeless Big Guy in the town of Estes Park’s major parade of the year, the Catch the Glow Parade. This year we had relatively warm weather (we could still see our breaths but we also could still feel our toes) so there was a large crowd for the parade. Estes Park has about 5000 residents, but many don’t remain for the winter season, so I don’t know just how many are year-round residents. There were predictions a day or two before Thanksgiving that as many as 20,000 people were expected to view the parade and it draws people from around northern Colorado and in another video, someone said they were from South Africa, so very international in our visitors.
I am not a Christian. I am an agnostic, bordering on an atheist. I hope for something existing as an afterlife, but the only expectation I have is to stop thinking and never start again. As a child, I had two nights in a row without any dreams. They were nights where I closed my eyes and then, I opened them in the next second and it was daylight. Kinda spooky and death may be a situation where I just never open my eyes to anything ever again. I believe in reincarnation only so far as energy and material makeup of my body being recycled into some future life form and never having any thought or spirit existence in that new body form. I may opt for the newly legalized composting of my body (after organ donations) and being scattered in a grove of aspen, so that is how I go into the future. Playing Santa Claus may be a bit hypocritical. I can wish people a Merry Christmas without worry simply because I would wish everyone a merry, joyous time over Christmas. I’m not one to wish people a Christmas season filled with angels, heavenly hosts, miracles and the like, but if that’s what they want, I’m not going to wish them a Christmas season like I expect for myself.
People in my social group Estes Park Newcomers have noticed that my beard grows white and fluffy. Last year, the older couple who have been playing Santa and Mrs. Claus asked me if I would be available to substitute, if necessary, as Santa Claus if Al was unable to fulfill all the appearances for some reason. Then, they even had me do one appearance as Santa to let me see if I liked it, and more important, to find out if I would make a good Santa Claus. This year, Al and Barb proposed to me that I take half the appearances and I could have my choice of either the Tree Lighting ceremony for the town or be in the parade. I decided to go for the parade because that’s way cooler than the Tree Lighting (and it turned out to be warmer). Earlier that day, I had been present for “Photos with Santa” since we decided Santa in the day should be the same as Santa at the parade.
In this photo, I’m not super-sized, but I puffed my belly out and propped it up with my hands around the belly to make it bigger. Looking at that, I really don’t recognize myself. I only had one young girl expressing doubt about my being a real Santa, but I think I think I handled that well. I have no idea how many families, kids, babies and grandparents had their pictures taken, but I did have some babies perched on my lap and two dogs getting their pictures taken. There was a pretty steady stream over 3 ½ hours though the line never grew beyond 2-3 families. I asked kids what they wanted for Christmas — Squishmallows were popular, especially with young girls, remote control cars, Legos and nerf guns were popular with young boys. I did have one woman tell me she wanted World Peace or Whirled Peas — I couldn’t quite hear her clearly. If kids couldn’t or were too shy to tell Santa what they wanted, I told them they should tell their parents and their parents would pass it along to me. We also have mailboxes in town where kids can write letters to Santa and the elves would make sure Santa writes back if they put their names and addresses on the letter. We have a volunteer crew to write them back.
I was happy to have the photo session lead off my Santa duties. I went home for a bite to eat and to get away from downtown so I wasn’t walking around in my costume for three hours. At the appointed hour, I met up with Mrs. Claus and the elves and we were driven downtown to the area where the floats were parked. Santa’s float was going to be last in the parade, so we didn’t even make it out of our parking spot for half an hour once the parade began. Our float has been used the last couple of years — as you can see, there were reindeer (eight — no Rudolph) “pulling” the sleigh and we had a hand microphone to talk to the crowd.
I had been told that we couldn’t see very far because of the lights shining on us from the front of the sleigh but I found I could see fairly well to both sides of the sleigh. As we turned onto the parade route, I had an opportunity to warm up to the experience since the crowds were less at the beginning of the route. People were only a few deep, and I threw “Merry Christmas”, “Happy Holidays”, “Stay Warm with Hot Chocolate, Marshmallows and Hot Cider” and some “Ho, Ho, Ho’s” out at them. They in turn were yelling at us “We love you Santa” and “Merry Christmas” and a variety of other terms of good cheer. One teenager was pointing at his friend and saying that his friend deserved coal for Christmas. I was able to ask his friend if that was true, and he agreed.
The parade went for about fifty minutes down the main street of town, with the crowd growing and crowding not just the sidewalks but spilling out onto the street. There were many, many phones taking pictures and video, and professional photographers taking pictures and video. The photo at the top is a screen capture from a video shot by the Estes Park News, a free weekly newspaper that publishes news as well as classifieds and regular ads. The whole parade can be found at www.rockymountainchannel.com/… and Santa starts being shown about 45 or 46 minutes in. I encourage you to go watch some of the 39 floats. It’s amazing what even a small town can do for a parade.
I looked for familiar faces in the crowd but didn’t see any until we were just about at the end. I had told kids getting their pictures taken in the afternoon that I’d look for them in the evening, but I was unable to spot anyone in particular. I did get to lock eyes with many people along the way and wish them a “Merry Christmas” directly; I hope that stays with them.
I have also shared with you my concerns that being such a visible symbol of happiness and good will, I might become a target of a sniper should someone want to ruin people’s Christmas memories forever, and once the parade started going, I was only able to think such dreary thoughts a couple of times. I did see one male teenager with a scowl on his face not enjoying the parade, but we swept on by and I didn’t have an opportunity to dwell on that. It is sad in today’s day and age that such thoughts can intrude on something that should be pure joy and happiness. Fortunately, there weren’t any issues and we had a great time, though after the day I had, I was happy to go home and go to bed early. I have a few more events as Santa, but it should all be downhill from here.
To all of the readers, I wish you a happy holiday season, whether you celebrate Christmas, Kwanza, Hanukkah, Festivus, Black Friday and Cyber Monday or just your family and friends.
Please feel free to write whatever is on your mind down below. We’re expecting a few inches of snow tonight though I doubt we’ll get the foot plus the weathercaster is predicting.
The floor is yours…