(Editor’s note: This column first ran in Hoptown Chronicle’s Sunday Brew newsletter. To get first access to articles like this, sign up for our newsletters.)
A light rain had set in when the Hopkinsville Christmas Parade made its way onto Main Street and headed south into downtown. But a crowd of spectators wearing rain gear and toting umbrellas still came out and lined the parade route.
It wasn’t the biggest Hopkinsville parade crowd I’ve seen at Christmastime, but it was a respectable showing considering the rain. Children seemed mostly unconcerned about getting wet. They still scrambled for candy tossed from parade floats and vehicles. With purpose, they jumped into puddles to grab the morsels. As it turned out, a little rain wasn’t such a bad thing.
The parade theme, “Peace on Earth,” was a grand idea but I knew before the first vehicle rolled down Main Street that there would be some irony in it. That’s because Hopkinsville (for reasons that I still don’t understand) has a long tradition of very noisy Christmas parades.
And these are not sounds one would normally associate with Christmas. Not bells or holiday carols heralding the season. No. Our Christmas parades are punctuated by shrill sirens, honking horns and revving engines. I confess that I’m a broken record on this topic. I’ve been commenting on the odd sound of our Christmas parades for years.
Two years ago, also in a Sunday Brew column, I wrote, “One — meaning this writer — can only imagine what a lovely sound it would be to have a Christmas parade free of ear-piercing sirens and horns. But props just the same to Hopkinsville Parks and Recreation staff for all the lovely and entertaining parts of the parade they organize (of which there were more than I could count).”
I can’t help but believe that our Christmas parade looks wonderful but sounds very off kilter because of the emphasis placed on the power of vehicles. This isn’t supposed to be a monster truck rally. It’s a Christmas parade. In my most sarcastic mood, I’ve been known to mention, “Nothing says birth of our savior like a screeching siren.”
Maybe some communities also treat their Christmas parade as a time to blast sirens, repeatedly honk horns and aggressively rev engines. But I know many more do not put on this kind of display. I’m also convinced there are people in Hopkinsville who quit showing up for our parades because it is not appealing to them.
Recently I watched a video of the Christmas parade in Frankfort, our state capital. An old police cruiser like the one on “The Andy Griffith Show” led the procession, setting a nostalgic mood for the night. Sirens from the first few vehicles didn’t run very long and horns sounded like an occasional tap through the procession rather than rapid-fire alarms.
My son, who moved to Colorado this year, tells me there were no blasting noises from emergency vehicles and big trucks in his town’s Christmas parade.
Imagine that. I do.
The best sound I heard Saturday evening during our rainy parade? It was people hollering from their floats and trucks to the people on the sidewalk, who then returned the greeting. Over and over, I heard them say, “Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas.”
It was exactly what I wanted to hear.
You can see more of Hoptown Chronicle’s photos from the parade here.
Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. Brown was a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era, where she worked for 30 years. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board past president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition. She serves on the Hopkinsville History Foundation's board.
