Heap Overrun

After living in Fredericton for 8 years, it's about time I got out to see the Christmas parade. Can I get a refund on the two hours I spent waiting and watching?

The biggest problem I had with the Christmas parade was the horribly large corporate presence. There were a lot of companies who had multiple vehicles just on their own; no decorations, no music, no demonstration of community support, nothing beyond cheap corporate advertising with multiple vehicles from the same company spread throughout the parade. There were other companies who were showing their support for a community group, but they were sadly few and far between. Of course, if Fredericton were to remove these vehicles from the parade they would lose half of the parade at a very conservatively bare minimum. I went to a Christmas parade, but all I got was a bunch of corporate advertising shoved in my face.

Another problem I had was the cadets. Or to be more accurate, their notable absence. The sea cadets from Oromocto were represented, but not a single Fredericton cadet unit was present. Why? Did the City not invite them? Did they decline the invitation? Was there no invitation and they didn't ask to be represented? Did they make a request but were denied? Regardless, the City needs to investigate why Oromocto's sea cadets were represented but no Fredericton cadet units at all.

The trash left over was actually shocking. Even if you didn't go to the parade, you could follow the parade route the next day just by staying close to the highest concentrations of garbage strewn about the sides of the roads. Doing that, you might be forgiven for thinking the parade had gone onto Ring Road with the number of vehicle decorations that were discarded there. Mayor Woodside has promised garbage cans along the parade route next year, but maybe something should also be done, if there actually is anything that can be done, about parade participants dumping their vehicle decorations.

There was very little music. Some tried, but everyone except for the two live bands and the radio station (sorry, I can't remember which one, they blended into the corporate advertising mass) had speakers that weren't powerful enough. The end result was some scattered music with more frequent (but still pretty scattered) static with the occasional bout of music.

There was a lot of notice given that spare change would be collected, but no notice (or perhaps I missed it?) that non-perishable food items would be collected. I was surprised to then see people asking for food items, but not so surprised when they didn't seem to be getting very much support. Spare change was only, as far as I could see, collected toward the end of the parade.

So, did anything go right? Well yes actually. The parade followed the route that was laid out for them, and the many children participating in the parade seemed to be having fun and looked very cute. There were companies present in the parade who put the focus on the community group they were supporting. Unfortunately this did nothing to help what appears to be a parade put on for the sake of having a parade. Although Fredericton could fix the issues, it's not likely that anything will be done, so congratulations to the City of Fredericton for convincing me to spend a couple hours at my first, and last, Christmas parade in Fredericton.