PAPA NOEL AND THE PARADE OF THE CHILDREN

Christmas Eve in Cuenca is a BIG DEAL and nearly everyone who isn't in the parade of the children turns out to watch it.  Several years ago we were walking along the parade route and more than one group of kids ran up to Jim yelling, "Papa Noel!"  This year he decided to capitalize on that and has been growing his beard long for the last 6 months as well as collecting toys and crayons at garage sales and such.  We came with one whole suitcase full of dolls and matchbox cars.  Here is Papa Noel ready to head out with his three bags of loot.

Actually, I guess we have been planning this for over a year since we bought the Santa Hawaiian shirt in the Caribbean during our cruise last year.

We decided to go to the staging area for the parade instead of getting into the mobs of people along the actual parade route.  We barely got a quarter of a block before the word was out and both of us were mobbed with children crying "me, me" with outstretched hands.

 

At one point my back was against a fence and a sea of children was pressing against me.  This was a little unnerving and I wasn't totally sorry when my bag of toys was empty.

This group was from the float right in front of us and some of the older girls tried to keep the crush of children at bay (unsuccessfully) but we were grateful anyway.  They eventually all wore angel wings on their "float" which was a flatbed semi draped in blankets.

 This parade is so big that the area where we were (which was by no means the very beginning of the staging) did not move for over two and a half hours AFTER the parade had started.  Then the floats moved about 30 feet.

What I love about this parade is it's grassroots feel - participants are in costume or not, on floats made of cars or pickups decorated simply with a blanket or very elaborately with offerings, like this one with fruits, vegetables, cookies, candy and of course the pig.

Many, many people are just on foot or dancing their way through the parade.

Or, like these two cuties, on horseback.

The other thing I really love about this parade is that any costume seems to do.  There were plenty of Santas, boys, girls and dogs;

Josephs or generic shepherds

 traditional costumes;

 angels, of course;

 and Amazonians.

I also loved all the smiles we saw - not just the kids were enthusiastic about Papa Noel and the fun of the parade.

Before we had gone more than 1/2 block all of the hundreds of toys we brought were gone.  After that there were just many, many photo ops with Papa Noel. 

A grand time was had by all.

Feliz Navidad!
Audrey