Families fill downtown Fort Worth to kick off holiday season with Parade of Lights
November 24,2024
See full Fort Worth Report article by Marcheta Fornoff here.
The Peters family doesn’t mess around when it comes to the start of the holiday season.
Every year at 10 a.m. on parade day, relatives from Weatherford, Azle, Decatur — and, of course, Fort Worth — head downtown to the family-owned Peter Brothers Hats shop to stake out their seats for the GM Financial Parade of Lights.
Fort Worthian Meredith Peters married into the family 11 years ago but said attending the parade has been a tradition for her in-laws for decades.
“It kind of became our annual get-together right before all the holidays. It gets everybody together in the same room,” she said.
Peters, who sat on a custom-made Texas flag bench, said that the November gathering allows the family to establish plans for the rest of the holiday season, including family birthdays. They gather early to set out chairs near the towering tree in front of the hat store before heading inside for a potluck.
“We just keep all the chairs stored for this specific thing,” she continued. “Every time anybody is getting rid of a camp chair or moving and they don't want to take it, we'll take it from them and keep them up here so that way we can set (them) out.”
Several other families sat nearby with camping chairs or blankets of their own, filling in the areas between the rows of reserved seats. The annual event, which fell on Nov. 24 this year, attracted tens of thousands of visitors and hosted just over 100 floats without incident, according to a spokesperson.
Across the street, Amanda Cervantes sat in the front row with her family in seats she won in an Instagram giveaway.
Cervantes grew up in Fort Worth and has been coming to the parade for as long as she can remember. Every year she looks forward to watching the marching bands stroll past and seeing Santa’s sleigh signal the end of the parade.
“I think it's just a good family tradition for everybody to come out and enjoy it,” she said. “(It) gets the holiday season going and gets everybody excited for this season to come.”
Seated nearby, 5-year-old EllieTabler echoed that sentiment.
“I like the Santa one and the ‘Jingle Bell Rock’ one,” she said.
She hasn’t had the chance to write a wishlist to give Santa yet, she added, but she is planning to request some play makeup.
Fifteen members of her family were in attendance, including her mom, Megan Tabler.
“My youngest, Milly, she's almost 2 years old, actually, so last year was her first year,” she said. “Just seeing their eyes light up with the parade … that's just really cool as a parent.”
Marcheta Fornoff covers arts and culture for the Fort Worth Report. Reach her at marcheta.fornoff@fortworthreport.org. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.