Holiday Dreams

Sunset Christmas Day

Well, the holidays will all soon be past us and I hope yours have been  wonderful. This holiday season we have seen many heart breaking tragedies and my goes out to the victims. My hope is for a Peace filled 2013. Here in Baja we have had some pleasant holiday celebrations with neighbors and new friends and simple home decorations and traditional yummy meals and gifts opened. Christmas day we enjoyed a American Classic meal at a local hotel restaurant with our thanksgiving dinner group. It was fun to watch the surf and share the holiday’s cheer.  I’ve posted lots of photos on Facebook …I’ve been enjoying hearing from all of you as well.

What I want to share with you is what I am doing tomorrow. I am driving to Pasadena to work on the City of South Pasadena Rose Parade float. One of only a hand full of floats still all build by volunteers. In the old days the floats all pretty much had volunteers decorating them. Now days there are big companies who build the floats and use special teams of volunteers. The thing is this has been a life time dream to work on a Rose Parade float.  I remember every year from very early childhood the family tradition of watching the Rose Parade on TV. It was a really big deal to my mom and I remember some years of not wanting to get up at the early hour and her waking up the household anyway, then being very glad that I was up watching it on TV. Growing up in Northern California I never actually went to the Rose Parade until I was an adult and we made a holiday trip to South Calif. I was thrilled and then when I lived in South Calif. I went to the viewing of the floats after the parade. That is very cool thing to do, they are parked and you together in a lot and you get to walk all around them and take photos and really admire the artistry involved in their creation.  Anyway, that was really great too and only re-enforced my desire to work on a float. Well life has a way of pushing some dreams to the background and then last year at an event in Atlanta I meet a man who was dying of cancer and we got talking and he said that one of his dreams had been to work on a rose parade float. I said mine, too. He said now I know I will never get to do it. That day I went home and thanks to the internet researched about volunteering to work on floats. I keep hold of the info, wondering how I could just hop out to the west coast for a few days. So, I kind of put it aside but now at least I did feel like my dream was possible. I had the info on how I could make it happen.

Then we decided to come here for the winter and I thought wow, I’m not that far from Pasadena about 150 miles. So, put in my application online and prepare for our travels. I was on the road in a motel when I got a reply from the volunteer coordinator. She wanted to know what dates I wanted to work! In the middle of Texas in Oct. it was hard to think about when I wanted to travel to Pasadena. So, I thought about it while driving down the boring highway in Texas for the next couple of days and then I replied. I really wanted to be there in the end when the float needs all the flowers to be put on at once in the last few of days.  So, emailed my reply and I got a spot to work on the South Pasadena float. After getting here and learning that the border crossing is not such a simple thing I have had to make additional plans so I can be fresh and enjoy my time as a volunteer float decorator. So, I am traveling a day ahead and staying in a nearby hotel. When I was young my ambition was to be involved on the whole process of the float building which takes months and one of the reasons I never thought I really could do it. Sometime we just need to alter our dream a little to fit it to our reality and at this stage in my life I think the time I will spend as a float decorator will be just perfect.  I hope I can take some photos, not sure if it is allowed. In any case if you are a rose parade fan like me enjoy watching the parade and when you see the South Pasadena City float know I had just a tiny little something to do with it this year….my dream came true and so can yours. Wishing you all a very happy new year!