[/stextbox]
The content below was prepared based on the Thanksgiving Parade experience of 2016
Legend has it that the Thanksgiving Parade in El Paso was previously a New Year’s Day Parade. I said “Legend has it”, not because the information is mystical but because I like the sound of the phrase “Legend has it”. 🙂 Actually, it is a historical fact that the town of El Paso arranged the parade on New Year’s day from 1936 to 1978. The parade was scheduled on the Thanksgiving Day in 1979. Since then, El Pasoans have been enjoying the parade on the Thanksgiving Day. In El Paso, it’s not this time of the year without the parade. It has been 80 years since the first parade. The theme of this year’s parade was “80 Years Around the World”.
We have been in El Paso for around three years but this is the first time we attended the Thanksgiving Parade, which is known as Sun Bowl Parade. Many organizations including local schools and colleges, police departments, fire departments, border security, local businesses, and nonprofits walked in the parade. A few wrestlers act-wrestled; shooters fired their guns; cheer-leaders back-flipped and performed a somersault; gymnasts showed their acrobatic moves; mascots hi-fived kids; police-cars ran with sirens. Both sides of Montana Avenue, from Ochoa to Copia, were full of people. Legend has it 🙂 that more than 250 thousand people watch this parade every year.
We went to the parade with a few friends who have been watching the Thanksgiving Parade of El Paso for decades. Based on their suggestion, we parked around half a mile away from Montana Avenue in a residential area. Of course, parking is always an issue in such a big event. Walking half a mile was not bad because the weather was great on the Thanksgiving Day. In fact, as El Pasoans, we enjoy great weather even in November. 🙂
The event was great for kids. We found a good place to watch the parade. Dear Son played with a few other kids of his age. He was graciously sharing his toy-car with other kids. Dear Son’s socializing skill is improving. I need to work on mine. 🙂 Dear Wife is so great in this department that I never felt the need of improvement. I have started to realize that I need to improve my social skills because Dear Son seems to be mimicking me on some matters. For example, Dear Son was saying “It’s hot” when I took off my jacket on our way back to the car. 🙂
We watched the parade for an hour and half. After being sated by the event, we all walked back toward car. It was fun to see all the kids playing in the nearby residential areas. We enjoyed viewing the beautiful gardens of the houses in the residential areas near the downtown. We said bye to all our Dear Friends and headed home. If you are in El Paso next year during the Thanksgiving Day, please plan on spectating the Thanksgiving Parade.
Lovely pictures. can you tell where El Paso is?
I live in Nepal, IN Nepal, we don’t have Thanksgiving parade. Actually, we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving. However, we celebrate many festivals that are marked by marching on the street. One that I enjoy very much is cow festival, which is somwehat similar to day of the dead, however, in cow festival they don’t use scarry prop, instead they use funny props.
El Paso is a town of the Texas state in the USA. Thanksgiving is a widely celebrated day in America and I believe, in Europe. A lot of family activities go with the Thanksgiving day. Almost all towns in the USA have town activities arranged for the thanksgiving day.
I have never been to Nepal but I have seen the beautiful pictures of Nepal as well as the Himalayas. The cow festival sounds interesting. Who doesn’t love funny themes? The day we use scary theme is Halloween ? , which is different from the Thanksgiving day.
Thank you for visiting and commenting. Have a wonderful week ahead.
This must have been a fun day for everyone that partook in the Thanksgiving parade in El Paso. The pictures showing it was an eventful day over there.
Fun!
Thank you for visiting and commenting.
Nice collection of pictures
We are glad to know that you liked the pictures. Thanks for visiting our blog.
Thank you this front row seat at El Paso’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. I plan to be in EP next Thanksgiving, and this looks like a fun event.
Thanks for the follow. I look forward to reading your posts, especially about EP.
– Harriet
Thank you very much for such an inspiring comment. Hope to see you in the thanksgiving parade next year. ? We will write more on EP. We found your blog when we were searching in WordPress the keyword “El Paso”. Your post titled Three pictures from El Paso-Juarez, showed up. The post is very inspiring. We look forward to reading your posts, as well.
Hello! I am commenting to let you know that I have nominated your blog for THE BLOGGER RECOGNITION AWARD. Here is the link to the article: https://smartvegrecipe.wordpress.com/2017/01/13/i-got-nominated-for-the-blogger-recognition-award/
Wow! That is so awesome. We appreciate the nomination. We will try to come up with a post on this and participate. We love your blog. Your blog reflects your passion of cooking very well. 🙂 Thanks a lot once again for the nomination.
Great pictures and looks like a fun day out! Weather seems very different from what we encounter when we try to watch the Macy’s parade in New York 🙂 Thanks for stopping by my blog!
Yes, Thanksgiving parade in El Paso was fun. It is not as big as Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade though. Weather is generally good in El Paso in that time of the year — a light-jacket is enough. 🙂 El Paso is in the Chihuahuan Desert. This is why we have shorter Winter. Thanks for visiting our blog and writing a comment.
Hello! Very nice pictures. Can you tell me about El Paso? Where is it located? What more?
Thank you for visiting our blog. We are happy to know that you liked the pictures of the parade. Definitely, we can provide some information about El Paso. El Paso is a town in the Texas state of the United States. The city is situated in the far western corner of the state of Texas. The town has borders with Mexico. Geographically, El Paso is located within the Chihuahuan Desert.
The Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Paso,_Texas contains more details about El Paso. We have been in El Paso for the last three years. We have been enjoying every bit of our stay here. Please let us know if you have any question. Thank you once again for taking the time to visit and write a comment on this post.
Great pictures! I had no idea that El Paso has a Christmas parade. We love parades! The annual Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo has a wonderful all western parade on the first Saturday of the rodeo. It is a wonderful parade and no entries can be motorized! I hope that the weather cooperates! The parade is 1/14/2017 and the rodeo is 1/13 thru 2/4!
Thank you for visiting our blog. The pictures in this post are from the Thanksgiving parade in El Paso. Sorry for this confusion. Actually, we have been traveling for the past few weeks; that is why we did not get a chance to write a post during the Christmas. This has caused this confusion.
We have seen pictures of the Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo. The pictures look amazing. Thank you for providing information about the parade and the Rodeo. We hope that weather will allow a wonderful parade. Happy new year.
I’m a little late getting to this but glad I didn’t miss it. Your parade has a real hometown flavor which I’m sure makes it much fun.
We are glad to know that you liked this post! Thank you for stopping by and commenting.
Love the space shuttle float!
That is one of our favorites too. Thank you for visiting our blog and commenting.
Looks like a pretty great parade! Awesome pictures! I wish there was one near me like this!
We are very glad to know that you liked the pictures of the parade. It was cool to watch the parade right from a street side. Thank you for visiting our blog. Have a wonderful evening.
That would be much better than watching a parade on TV. Great pictures.
Haha ? yes, it was fun. Thank you for your comment.
Looks and sounds like good day.
janet
Yes, it was a good day. Thank you for visiting our blog and leaving a comment.