Float

It's Wednesday. The Candlelight Christmas parade is Friday. In two days.

Did I tell you that Pathway enters a float into the parade every year? This will be our 4th parade since we moved here. The first year, Seth was only two months old. So natually, we thought, Live Nativity. (Okay, so maybe that's not the "natural" first thought the average mother of a newborn has. I think that natural first thought is, "I'll stay home with the baby." Maybe I'm not so average.) Anyway, our generator stopped working, so none of the strings of lights we painstakingly hung were lit. (Lights are kind of important in a nighttime Christmas parade.) But we did have paperbag luminaries, each filled with sand that anchored a small candle. The kids were dressed as shepherds, a couple of grownups were wisemen, a Joseph was thrown in there, and I was Mary holding a very red-headed baby Jesus, who thankfully slept through the whole parade. I was so thankful, because I didn't really have a plan B if baby Jesus was uncooperative. Oh, and we all sat on bales of hay on a trailer, pulled by a pick-up truck. So, why did I think that real candles and dry bales of hay and small children were a perfect parade combination? Thank the Lord none of the little shepherds set the float ablaze. And the luminaries were actually as charming and lovely as can be, and we won a little trophy for our float as the Chambers of Commerce Choice award. Fun. Kind of. It was FREEEZING.

The year after, we set up a little living room scene with a Christmas tree and sofa and had the families huddled together. Last year, we set up rows of chairs around a Christmas tree and the kids all held battery operated candles. We also made two signs that said, "PATHWAY," with the "T" shaped like a cross, out of Christmas lights.

This year...we have no idea.

We still have no headway into our float. Basic problem? We don't have a float. Basic solution to problem? Find a float.

The fellow who loaned us his trailer the past couple of years just repainted it beautifully, and we really didn't feel like we should ask to use it. With so many kids and decorations, we really couldn't guarantee a scratch-free return.

So...I'm not sure what we'll do. Our neighbor has an old hay wagon. Maybe he'll let us use it? Or we could just deocrate the sides of Rob's pick-up and pile all the kids in the back? But then how do we decorate it?

Anybody have any ideas "floating" around out there?