Holiday Parade lights up downtown Marquette

Winter Snow Fun covered Marquette this evening as the 39th annual Holiday parade and tree lightning ceremony took place. Lights and floats transformed Third Street into an enchanted Christmas wonderland. More than 25 festively decorated floats, vehicles, marching units and fat bikes, rolled into downtown Marquette.

And to keep warm until the parade got going, kids took the opportunity to dance a little dance. But not just young kids participated in the nights event.

Parade participant and senior ice skater Mary DeMarse said, “We have the seniors adult ice skaters that are participating again this year. We seniors range in age from 60 up to almost 80 years old. I think it is pretty good when we can get seniors participating in a parade like this.”

And although the U.P. is pretty far North, we’re still not quite close enough to the north pole so Santa’s Postal helpers popped in this evening to lend a helping hand.

“We are out here to collect letters from Santa Claus from all the kids. The kids love us and we like doing things for the community,” said Larry Kuhn, Postal Worker.

“I made a letter for Santa and I wrote what I wanted for Christmas and how I am thankful for because he brings me presents,” said Gabby Swajanen.

Parade participant Ezekiel Weber had this to say, “It’s a blast, we are all here having a good time. It might be cold and just layer up a bit, surround yourself with some good people and you will stay warm, don’t worry about it.”

And not man did worry about it, as the streets were lined with people to watch the parade pass by and partake in the festivities and candy throwing.