Hollywood Christmas Parade

Elmo looks like he's going to eat all the people, but don't worry he's tied up. Many an inappropriate joke was made about Elmo coming for the kids...

Thanksgiving Day as I was working with my house guests to prepare our delicious turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, corn bread casserole, etc etc etc we discussed the fact that the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is often referred to as the Macy's Day Parade. Cudos to Macy's for having a whole parade on Thanksgiving be one of the biggest and most interesting forms of advertising in the holiday season.

I went to see the Hollywood Christmas Parade, the equivalent of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, only it's smaller and not on Thanksgiving. A friend's sister was in town as an assistant director for a band from Indiana, Pennsylvania (represent!) to march in the parade and we went out to support her! It was fun to see the floats and bands go by (plus all of the "celebrities" we didn't know in fancy sports cars waving like Ms. America).

super cool band "banner"

I happened to be standing near a wire that crosses Hollywood Blvd (by the Popeyes if you know where that is...nearly across the street from my church) for no apparent reason. I'm sure there is/was a reason at some point but it just complicates things for those marching with big balloons, all of then had to almost touch the ground in order to pass underneath it holding up the parade for a bit.

Dukes of Hazard

In any case, it was a fun evening cheering on the side of Hollywood Blvd and, because I took the metro, I didn't have to deal with parking and/or driving in that mess :)

Scoobie Doo!!!

Who ya gonna call?

In other news. Last night I was able to attend a screening of some shorts up for the Oscars this year. None were particularly stand out but it was fun to watch them and learn about the voting process. There are even little pens with flashlights and glow ends used for voting to turn off the short if it's really bad (note to filmmakers: make sure the first six minutes of your short are good, and don't spend all that time on opening credits).