Annual Easter Parade

Every year, the city near our house has an annual Easter parade. It is put on by the Wish Upon A Star Foundation and all entry fees go to grant wishes for terminally ill children. The surprising thing is that we have been able to enter a very religious looking float into this parade without any hassles. When we first began entering, we were one of the only floats that had a true Easter theme. Some had bunnies and flowers; most didn't even have that. Over the years we have seen a definite increase in the number of religious looking floats. Praise God!

Here's how it works:

Since my husband knows how to pull a trailer, he is the one who has pulled the hay rack that we borrow from a farmer friend of ours. Volunteers meet the night before to decorate the float.

A number of years back we found some professional float decorations and put everything together so that all we have to do now is screw the plywood boards onto the back and sides of the hay rack and the float is almost done!

We have a huge Divine Mercy image that we hang on the back of the float and a huge Our Lady of Guadalupe image that hangs on the front side.

Every year we have one of our teen boys dress up as Jesus. He gets to stand on the float with an authentic looking crown of thorns on his head, holding a large wooden cross we borrow from the church. Anyone else who wants to can dress up as a saint or a biblical looking character. One year we found a man who was willing to dress up like Jesus who had a donkey that we got to walk with us.

Our group then purchases roses, palms and holy cards and we get them all blessed. On parade day, anyone from our homeschool group who has gathered gets to walk the parade route with the float and hand out the flowers, palms and holy cards. It is always quite moving to see how the parade watchers clamor for the items we have, especially the roses!

Another tradition we have is to pick out a song to be played from our float. We try to pick an upbeat religious song that gets everyone's blood pumping.

After the Easter parade is over, we gather at one of our member's homes, disassemble the entire float and have a big pizza party. Overall, participating in this Easter parade makes for one great day. It is so neat for all of our families - both kids and adults - to be able to evangelize to such a large crowd.

This same city also has a "Christmas" parade (on Thanksgiving weekend, of course) but we haven't ever participated in that one. If your town or city has a parade around a Christian holiday, you might want to consider participating. It really is a great way to spread the message of the Gospel and have fun at the same time.