The holiday parade has been a long-standing tradition in this city for decades, with businesses, organizations and nonprofits turning out to celebrate the holidays, and also to support local businesses.

Jamestown Renaissance Corporation organized this year’s parade, and was sponsored by the Resource Center, which also runs the local Toys for Tots program. Zach Agett, the marketing and events manager for the Jamestown Renaissance Corporation, said that it had 74 floats this year, with 15 to 20 emergency vehicles participating. He said that this has been the usual amount for the past few parades.

“I’m not sure that we could even expand this parade out much further, the line already goes way back, it seems like forever.” said Agett. He added that, “It’s a great parade, and a fun night. It gets people out during a time of year that they usually aren’t out, and they are happy. It’s good to see people happy during the winter time.”

The parade ran for nearly two hours, including the pre-parade musical performance by We Speak Canadian, and fireworks following the national anthem. The crowd at this year’s parade was large as well, parking spaces were virtually all filled up, and the remaining cars were filling up the downtown parking garages.

Fireworks end the celebration. Photo by Daryl Simons Jr.

A few of the attendees commented on the evening of festivities.

“It was fantastic! My grandbaby loved it!” said Jerry Hayes of Jamestown.

Meals on Wheels Executive Director Barrie Yochim said that “It was a wonderful parade. Weather was good, and a lot of people turned out for a really nice parade.”

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Some of the attendees watched it from the comfort of a warm room.

An air-filled gingerbread man smiles. Photo by Daryl Simons Jr.

“We watched from the window at the La Quinta Inn, and we had a fabulous view… and we were warm. It was a really good parade with lots of great floats,” said Natalie Manno of Jamestown.

According to Mike Calimeri, National Comedy Center board member, “It was a great parade. We viewed it from the Tropicana Room in the National Comedy Center. We all had a great time.”

Along with the floats, one local organization took a different route with the festive theatrics by displaying their dancers in the windows of a downtown salon. Elizabeth Bush, Executive Director of Chautauqua Regional Youth Ballet, explained why the ballet had its dancers dancing here.

“We enjoy doing this before the parade starts, particularly since there many people out waiting for the parade to begin. So in a way, it serves as good pre-parade entertainment, and during the parade as well,” said Bush. “I don’t believe any other organization does anything like this. We were inspired by New York City, which is famous for their Christmas windows.”

As people were passing by, one could see several of them trying to imitate the dancers there. They included a “button” on the window that made the dancer begin dancing.

Santa’s helper waves. Photo by Daryl Simons Jr.

One of the dancers who were performing in front of the window commented that she “likes how many people there were. And they looked they were having fun watching us.”

Following the end of the floats in the parade, local police corralled the crowd towards City Hall, in which the evening was concluded with a barrage of fireworks, with the addition of patriotic music playing along in the background.