This year in support of our 99%, we chose to boycott Black Friday sales (no, that did not prohibit us from looking at the ads for the deals).  This was the first black Friday in years where we have not counted ourselves among the early risers hustling through the Targets and Toys R Us stores seeking the awesome door buster specials.  No, on this day, we slept in until 7:00, had a lovely eggs benedict breakfast, leisurely got ready and headed to downtown Seattle to catch the parade.

Several years ago, in fact, when I was pregnant with Jude, we started our tradition of going to the parade.  That first year we headed down with our friends Jeff and Michelle.  We crowded into our car, found a spot on the end of the parade route, and our kids were perfectly happy to watch as the bright colors, balloons, floats and bands paraded by us.  It was cold that year, but nobody complained.  We wandered from Pike Place to the galleries on Capitol Hill.  It was a pretty epic day!  After that we decided to make it a yearly tradition.  We no longer go with Jeff and Michelle as their parade route does not always allow for downtown, but the Littlejohns always make it streetside to catch a Frango or two.

In the past we’ve tried, with some success, to take our Christmas card picture while we were downtown.  Ironically, our picture is all ready to go, printed and everything this year, but this year was our best picture taking year ever for the parade!  Funny how that happens.

Ok.  Weird, right?  A band with a mascot of Abe Lincoln?  Absolutely weird.  AND it just so happens that Honest Abe can bust a funky move and is, hands-down, absolutely the most talented and funny school mascot I have ever seen.  Yes, EVER.  The end.  I’m not saying I have standards for judging this type of thing, but if this were the awesomest mascot pageant, Abe would be walking away with the biggest crown, the two dozen roses and the scholarship money.  No question.

 

The parade always culminates with our good pal, St. Nick.  In the early days we would plant ourselves at the end of the parade route – seeing all the floats yet missing Santa as he exits the parade at Macy’s to take to his throne.  A few years ago we ACTUALLY got a spot earlier in the parade route and caught a glimpse of the man in red.  Gigi got excited.  Like really really excited – a lot like Jude got excited on this day.  And we felt like bad parents, that we had denied our daughter this rare opportunity to see Santa.  Who does that?!  Ever since then her request has been to please, ACTUALLY SEE SANTA.  It is the Santa Claus Parade.  One would think we would have realized this earlier on!

The last stop on our parade route is the Westlake Center hot dog in a park.  This may not seem like a big deal to many people, but for vegetarians to find a place that actually serves vegetarian hot dogs is very rare.  So when we find a place that serves our kind, we patronize the heck out of it!  And you might be able to tell, yes I did enjoy my bratwurst with onion, cabbage,potatoes and sauerkraut on it very much.  Thank you!

 

 

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