Two Holiday Parades, Disneyland and San Francisco
Filing these together because they belong together: two holiday parades, one at each end of the same stretch of California.
Disneyland first. The Christmas Fantasy parade has run down Main Street, U.S.A. every holiday season since 1995, and showtimes vary, so we staked out a curb near the Market House and waited. Worth it. Snowmen in bowler hats and scarves led the way, followed by Mickey in a snowflake-print top hat on a float dripping with fake icicles, then Goofy in a chef's hat working a candy grinder outside a gingerbread house the size of a garage. Ariel and Eric came through last on a column-and-garland float, waving from behind velvet ropes. The flocked tree at the top of the street was done entirely in blue and silver, snowflakes the size of dinner plates.
San Francisco was the other end of the spectrum — the Chinese New Year parade on Market Street after dark, a dragon two blocks long lit from the inside, firecrackers going off at street level close enough to feel. The whole crowd held cameras over their heads. Smoke hung under the streetlights long after the tail went by.
