Kinston's Christmas Parade

I thought we had missed it because we went for breakfast - but we managed to catch the last 45 min of a one hour show! Took lots of pictures...

 All the emergency vehicles in Lenoir County, it seemed, were here with all the sirens going. I was a bit confused about what this had to do with Christmas.

 Here is the Kinston Free Press car (why wasn't Bryan Hanks, editor, driving his Jeep?) with Bryan at the wheel, Jon Dawson and Citizen of the Year.

 The Jesus Train.

 This was a pretty good marching band. Dan noted three sousaphones.

 Cynthia and Michael from the Overland Gallery! I actually got out of the truck to take this photo. Who was the gorilla brandishing a candy cane as a sceptre?

 Live band singing something Christmasy.

 The only Smart Car in all of North Carolina.

 Dogs! With costumes! And they aren't all pit bulls! (Most of the dogs around here are pit bulls, it's rare to see a different breed).

 The Canadian and Indian flag on this float caught my eye, then we saw flags of other nations.

 These little dancey girls were cute and saucy, but man they sure looked cold.

 Dan said "An airport tug with an inline six". Note the leopard sitting up front - probably not a real leopard.

 This one was confusing because it says "Jesus... The Greatest Gift"

 I liked this one a lot. A gingerbread house!

 Happy Birthday Jesus!

 Tractor.

Dan said "It's the Chick-Fil-A show!" (get it?)

I was live tweeting as I took all these photos. The parade was much better than I was expecting. There were a lot of vehicles that had no decorations on them so it was hard to see what they had to do with Christmas. It sort of made us think about how much fun it would be to create a parade float!