Photo by Monique Schoenfeld, Town Crier
Dick Thomas prepares a model plane float for Girl Scout Troop 1166, one of the new floats featured during the 22nd annual Festival of Lights Parade. The Sunday night event drew a huge crowd to downtown Los Altos, with organizers citing a bigger turnout than last year's parade.
Town Crier Staff Writer
New floats, large crowd add spark to 22nd Festival of Lights parade
They arrived in droves with thermoses in hand, tables in tow, and carrying blankets, chairs and children. Some spread out buffets, sipped wine from glasses and shared fondue from crockpots. Others celebrated birthdays, tossed balls and gathered for family get-togethers.
This was the scene at Sunday night's 22nd annual Festival of Lights Parade in downtown Los Altos.
Since local merchants Marion Jackston and Hope Highbee founded the parade in 1977, the Los Altos event has become a holiday tradition for tens of thousands of Bay Area residents. This year, the streets swelled with 20,000 to 25,000 spectators, according to estimates from parade organizers.
Just ask Mary La Forest, who set up an encampment along State Street with her three grown children. The Los Altos resident said her family has been coming to the parade since her children were in school. One of her daughters even marched in the parade when she was a member of the Los Altos High School marching band.
Mike and Samantha Phillips, who are parade regulars, had reserved their spot along State Street by 1 p.m.
So what keeps these spectators coming back year after year?
La Forest and her children said they know they can always expect to see the illuminated snow goose, the lit-up mouse, Santa and his reindeer and be guaranteed a good time.
"I think it puts more spirit in the holidays ... starts the holidays off," La Forest said.
It's no accident that the parade has changed little over the past 22 years. Parade organizers say they believe onlookers come year after year expecting to be captivated by the parade's lights and fantasy themes. In fact, organizers work year-round to retain the parade's original theme, "Children's Holiday Fantasy," said parade volunteer Marie Backs.
"I remember standing on the corner of First and Main streets," Backs said about the first parade. "It was so surreal. I think it's still a hometown parade. Personally, I really like that quality about it."
The Festival of Lights Association meets monthly year-round preparing for the one-and-a-half hour parade held each November in downtown Los Altos. Part of the association's work includes reviewing and often rejecting parade submissions. Parade chairman Brown Taylor said the association reviews anywhere from 15-30 possible entries each year.
"People think (participants) just slap on a silly hat ... It's a lot more than that," Taylor said.
The association limits the parade to no more than 75 entries each year. This year's parade had 65 entries, including 25 floats, six high school bands and dozens of costumed characters.
The association owns, maintains and stores about 25 of the parade's floats. Float sponsors pay a fee, which helps maintain that particular float. Other participants bring their own floats or borrow the association's float beds to assemble their floats the day of the parade, Backs said.
Space is limited and getting a float in the parade isn't always easy, Taylor said. Those who want a spot in the parade must submit a detailed drawing of their proposed submission.
The association guidelines forbid the use of Santa Claus (tradition dictates that only one Santa rides in the last float of the parade) and commercial signs, and require that only garden tractors pull floats. Floats must be no larger than 32 by 12 feet. And, of course, all entries must be sufficiently illuminated. Only those deemed "whimsical and with a fun holiday message" will make it past the association's scrutiny, organizers said.
"We don't want a lot of trucks and vehicles lit up. That's not the focus of the lights parade," Taylor said.
Brown said the committee has turned away numerous entries, including one of a crane-like piece of heavy equipment decorated as Puff the Magic Dragon, complete with a moveable head, that this reporter submitted.
"I liked the rendition, but it didn't look holiday to me. It still looked like a tractor," Taylor said.
The association also has modified entries that didn't fit the parade's standard. Taylor said the association asked the Menlo Park Fire Department not to bring its "burning house" float that firefighters pulled behind their fire truck as part of a skit on fire safety.
"The holiday skit is an important message, but it's not whimsical and not holiday. It scared the kids last year. I called them this year and said 'We appreciate your participation, but the house has to stay (in the garage).'"
Two new floats did make it into this year's parade. Foothill College's "Polar Express - A Toy Christmas Train," and Girl Scout Troop 1166's "Holiday Flight."
Foothill's rendition of a Christmas train included about 35,000 lights. Students modified last year's float over the past month to fit on a new, motor-driven float bed that the association acquired this year and let Foothill use.
Float designer Joe Ragey said construction of Foothill's float used to be part of his theater production class. Students would have to assemble and disassemble the float each year. With the long-term use of the new float bed, Ragey said the float may remain intact year-round, allowing students to augment the float each year. The association added Foothill's float to its permanent collection, he said.
Dick Thomas, who helped build the model plane for the Girl Scouts, said getting the float into the parade was fairly easy.
"I've always talked about doing it," he said. So Thomas submitted his idea along with a photo and the committee accepted it.
The final float included an illuminated model plane hovering above clouds, which carefully disguised the truck that propelled the float.
Perhaps the festival's biggest change has occurred along the curbside, where the crowds seem to arrive earlier and get bigger each year.
Organizers said the crowd at this year's parade seemed larger than last year's, although there was no formal count to support the observation.