A Parade Story

We didn’t have a float this year, but we had a truck.

This weekend, we had the Watkinsville Christmas Parade. It may not be the Macy’s Parade, but I’m here to tell you that our little Mayberryesque town, population 2,888,  turns out for a parade. Everyone with a John Deere tractor, plasters a big, red bow on it and drives it down Main Street. Seriously, there are usually close to a hundred entries. Everybody wants to be in the parade.

This year, no one in our church wanted to organize a float, so one of the members of an adult Sunday School class said he would drive his truck. I have walked in the parade, with our church for the past seven years, but I was really torn about walking this year. There are always so many beautiful floats and creative entries and I was really disappointed that we only had a truck. Furthermore, we were expecting rain.

When we first started participating, we filled up an entire float and had another thirty walkers or so. But, times are different now, and I just wasn’t sure about walking this year until I got a call from Anne, one of the members of our clergy. She was so excited that we were given the number 22 spot this year. Normally, we are way back in the eighties. Her enthusiasm was pretty contagious.

I had to admit to myself that I really do love that little parade. Getting to say Merry Christmas a thousand times and passing out candy to little kids is hard to beat. I decided to go.

When I arrived at the truck, it had the church banner on it. Then Anne had one of our youth to wind some beaded Christmas garland around the rack on the top. Meanwhile, one of our kids who we haven’t seen since the summer, showed up on his bike and after everyone hugged him, he quietly asked me if I thought he could ride his bike with us. I told him, “of course,” and we wound some garland around his handlebars and someone put some deer antlers on his helmet.

Three other boys decided they would like to be shepherds and so they put on shepherd costumes that Anne brought along just in case. We had eight or so people wearing reindeer antlers. We had a mom pulling a wagon and last, but not least the senior pastor, decked out in a Hawaiian shirt, was driving a dune buggy with a possum strapped to he hood. There were six people holding a red rope, wearing reindeer antlers, pulling the “dune buggy sleigh.” Did I mention there was a dog wearing Christmas attire and someone was playing a tambourine?

Dune buggy sleigh

I hope you can picture this motley crew I have described, because as we started moving along the route, the craziness of our circus-like scene had me laughing so hard, I thought my sides would split. By the end, my stomach muscles felt like I had been doing sit ups. We were surrounded by so many lovely and well put together floats and we were, well, we were material for Jeff Foxworthy stand up.

Two of our three shepherds

I mean, if anyone ever said they were uncomfortable walking into a church of perfect people, then we were able to allay those fears. All we needed was a clown and a bearded lady. But, you know what? I could see Jesus in all of those fellow church members as we walked together  shoulder to shoulder. We have been through a lot together. We have celebrated births and mourned deaths together. We have taken each other meals and fed each other physically and spiritually. Walking with them was a blessing.

It really struck me that it isn’t about the what. It’s about the who, the who I was walking with that matters, not the what we were walking behind. Most importantly, it’s the who we serve. God doesn’t ask for perfect. He just asks us to give what we have and He will do the rest. I am intentionally looking for God this Advent Season and He was with us on Saturday; I have no doubt about it, and I suspect He was smiling; I know I was.

Have an awesome day!

Wendy 🙂