Christmastime in Winston

December was full of holiday events and festivities all around town. Chris and I went to Twin City Santa, which multiple people called "Christmas Prom for Adults." With the donation of a couple of items for the Toys for Tots campaign, we had appetizers, drinks, and great music for dancing at the Millenium Center.

The city's holiday parade lasted close to two hours on one of the chillier nights of the month. Luckily, the route goes right by our building, so I could have hung my head out the window if I wanted to (I pushed through and lasted the entire time). Besides the obvious marching bands and dancing troupes with their wreaths and glow-in-the-dark candy canes, there were also some other interesting parade participants:

• Tae kwon do teenagers breaking boards five feet in the air



• Kids on pogoballs and (runaway) unicycles (Seriously, I thought I was going to get taken out by one of them that finally got stopped sixteen inches from my feet!)



• Firemen scaling a wall



• The nativity float - complete with the rear view of these ... well... donkeys.



• The Demon Deacon mascot



• Santa, of course



• And - the Foothills brewery truck - without a lick of Christmas decorations or even any holiday tunes playing from the radio! Just the truck - totally cracked me up!



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After the parade, the city-wide tree lighting ceremony took place down at Corpening Plaza. I popped back into my apartment to defrost and then followed the crowd to the tree. They had a whole line-up of musical and dancing acts performing on the stage, including a selection from the performance of Langston Hughes' Black Nativity that I wished I would have been able to go to at some point...

I was really trying to hang on for the lighting so I could have a nice before and after photo, but after an hour of awaiting the lighting, I could no longer feel my fingers or toes, so I went home. (And had Chris make a stop after the Christmas Eve service to get the picture of the lit tree.)

So even though there was not snow on the ground, it was still cold (on some days - in the sixties on others, though, which was perfectly fine by me) - so yes, it did still feel like Christmas. Especially when my parents arrived - the best gift of the year! Details of their visit in the next post. Hope everyone else had as wonderful of a December as we did! Merry Christmas!