Elliot Suzanne Hillen and WV Baby Princess American Royal Beautie during the Morgantown Christmas Parade on Thursday.
MORGANTOWN — Location, location, location.
Sure, it’s important in real estate. But in the parade peepin’ game, it’s everything.
A couple of pros were out Thursday for the 2019 Morgantown Christmas Parade.
“We come early and get this curb right here,” Mary Ellen Smith said of the prime bit of asphalt in front of 461 High Street.
“We’ve come to all the parades for at least, what, 15 years,” she asked her husband, Paul. “Well, the biggies anyway.”
And Thursday was a biggie, to be sure.
There was hip hop dancing, Shriners on motorized bar stools, candy raining down by the handful, royalty in tiaras, marching bands, country bands, reindeer on dirt bikes, even Cousin Eddie astride a technicolor tenement on wheels.
Then there was the big man himself — Parade Marshal Ken Holloway, who recently retired as Morgantown’s director of public works after more than three decades with the city.
And all this was merely the opening act for Santa and Mrs. Claus. The couple closed the show with a little help from the Morgantown Fire Department.
But you can never have too much Santa in an undertaking of this magnitude.
Luckily, there was a stunt double on hand to help kick off the festivities at Main Street Morgantown’s tree lighting on the Monongalia County Courthouse Square prior to the parade.
A few dozen 4-Hers belted out the Christmas classics with Santa in front the community tree, which was provided by the Claudio Corporation.
Afterward, the jolly old elf spared a moment for the press.
“I just like making people happy and having fun,” he said. “It’s always great to see the kids smile.”
