Christmas Parade favorite set to return

Sally Daniel

President, LDBA

In 2020, the pandemic had basically shut down Christmas. With every event and festival canceled, we had to get creative in order to generate some “socially distanced” holiday cheer, which spawned the Holiday Cheer Challenge, where people could “channel their inner Griswold.”

The LBDA reached out to pick the brains of creative friends about promoting it, asking Will Rhodes about DJ’ing with a street party — but that wouldn’t keep people distanced — so Amber West suggested making it mobile and going to the senior centers. Such a great idea!

Enter Rick Thomson. The next thing you know we have a lighted Keep Lockhart Beautiful Christmas boat float with “DJ Christmas” roaming the streets blasting Christmas music and basically making people happy. It was incredible. 

In 2021, Thomson seriously stepped up the lights, and Disco Santa made his first appearance thanks to Casey Wilcox. We still had Covid restrictions, and just like in 2020, in order to be compliant, we couldn’t announce where the KLB Christmas Boat would show up since it would cause people to gather. It was frustrating for the people who wanted to see it, but thankfully this year we don’t have that limitation. No one has yet to see the lights on the boat this year, but we know it will be next level.

Plus, we’ll have both Disco Santa and DJ Christmas involved this year, with other surprise guests like newly retired Ron Faulstich, who will appear in the festival’s lighted parade on Saturday.