Editorial: Hoorah for parade - see you there

A bright float in last year's Dannevirke Christmas Parade. Photo / Christine McKay

There's nothing like a good parade.

The bands, the banners, the marching teams and the flash cars and whatever else the organisers of such colourful events are able to put together.

While I have seen many community parades, be they sporting, celebratory, automotive or festive, I have never been in one ... but then nor do I want to be.

Although there was a time many moons back when our car was a Vauxhall Viva and our daughters were primary age that we very nearly all took part in a parade.

We were in Feilding and I'm not entirely sure what we were doing there, except that while passing through we almost steered into the staging of a parade.

What the folk of Feilding would have made of a chap and his good lady, with two little girls in the back, all looking embarrassed and bewildered while driving behind an equally bewildered pipe band would have been anyone's guess.

The one parade we took them to annually, when that age, and also our lad when he arrived on the scene, was the Christmas Parade.

The kids would all squat or kneel along the roadside, while others would hop up and down excitedly awaiting the festive fun to come.

There used to be lolly scrambles along the way which resulted in marvellous mayhem, and I always took some extra lollies along in case they missed out.

It's called forward planning.

So it was a tad sad back in 2008 when it was announced the Napier Christmas Parade would be no more and that a sort of community gathering of events would take its place.

They're not the same.

You can't beat a good parade.

So to have it back on the calender once again is good news. Hats off to all those who put it together for the folks of Napier, and visitors, to enjoy this afternoon.

Santa has a brand new sleigh and he hasn't touched a razor all year so all is well.

While the decorations and sparkles have been appearing in shop windows since the start of November, the Christmas Parade is the real signal that the season of pine aromas in the house and last-minute panic shopping is upon us.

Great to see the parade back.