By Loretta Humble/Around the Town
A couple of months ago I told you my daughter Liz Allen came back from her Meals on Wheels route dragging an old boat on a boat trailer, saying she was going to make a Christmas parade float out of it. It was kind of cute in an old fashioned way. Liz likes to emphasize the “Lake” part of the names of our companies, Cedar Lake Nursing Home and Cedar Lake Home Health and Hospice. So when she uses the phrase, “Life is better at the Lake,” she means “Life is better at Cedar Lake.” She figured that old boat would be the perfect match for us, one we could take to every parade for the rest of our lives. I thought she was nuts, but I’ve learned to never underestimate that red headed girl.
Liz could visualize it all “Christmas-ed up” with Santa “driving.” However, she soon discovered there should be only one Santa per parade, and that is the Santa who leads it. But Frosty the Snowman aka Dylan Marcus, who always represents Cedar Lake at parade time stepped up to take the wheel. (Dylan’s grandma Carol and mom Dede are both long-time Cedar Lake people.) Then Liz and Dylan sat about recruiting elves and dancing Christmas Trees and Christmas presents to go along with it.
Douglas Dupree got to do a little clean up fix up on it, and staple a string of lights around it before Liz picked up her boat and took it to her house to start working on it last Saturday morning. This was just hours before the Athens Christmas Parade which she had us entered in. I thought she must have got a bunch of her friends over to help, but turns out, it was just Liz and her husband Gary.
I got my first look at it as it lined up in Athens waiting to take off. I don’t know how many floats were entered in the Athens Parade. It seemed like a hundred. And there were really fine ones. But in my opinion ours stood out like a little jewel. I thought it was gorgeous.
It was pulled by Sonny’s old red Jeep, which had a real live Christmas tree tied to the top, driven by granddaughters Ariel and Shanna all decked out in Pixie outfits, with a back seat full of great-grandkid elves.
The boat was festooned with tinsel and garlands, and all lit up with tons and tons of lights, with our logos on the windows, and that big slogan, “Life is better at the Lake,” down the sides.
Elves and human Christmas trees stood ready to walk the route with it. Then Liz took me to the back of the boat to show me its name: Loretta Louise! I wasn’t expecting to have a boat named after me!
Our float was in our own Malakoff Christmas Parade Saturday. I wish ours was going to be at night, so you could see how great the lights look. But it is going to be a sight to see.