Pictured with the props for their float are some of the stars of the Cambridge Grains float. Pictured from left, back row, is Mia and Ethan Ryan, and, front row, Jess the fox terrier, Charlotte Couttes, Charlotte Rennie with Whispa the cat, and Maddi Forbes.
With six weeks until the end of the year Christmas is well and truly in the air.
As shops bring out their Christmas specials and decorations are hung about the town, dozens of Cambridge’s community groups, students, families and colleagues are beginning work on their float entries for the Cambridge Christmas Parade.
The December 1 Cambridge New World-sponsored event will see 50 floats roll through the town centre, this year following a theme of “Christmas around the world”.
“The hardest part is coming up with a Christmas theme that doesn’t involve Santa,” said Kerry Rennie, one of the organisers of the Cambridge Grains float. “You can only have one Santa.”
The Cambridge Grains team came up with a new theme – elves and reindeer playing hide and seek in the Christmas tree forest. Each year they have a similar group of children and parents featuring, usually numbering around 25 in total – some on a truck float, others walking.
“The best part is that we get to do it every year, because every time Kerry says she’s not going to do it again, but then she does it the next year,” said Mia Ryan, a Leamington School pupil who stars on the float alongside her brother Ryan and fellow Leamington students Charlotte Coutts, Maddi Forbes and Charlotte Rennie.
“Once we’ve made the decision to be in it, it’s always about the kids,” said Kerry. Most of the features of their float were ready to go, she said, “and we just put it together on the day.
“We lose half of our garage this time of year to Christmas stuff.”
Shae Cockburn with some of the props set to star in the St Peter’s Catholic Christmas float.
The team at St Peter’s Catholic were in a similar boat, doing most of their assembling on the day using a “walking float”, with the 50 or so students taking part dressing up in the “Christmas around the world theme”, along with having their regular feature of every St Peter’s Catholic School Christmas float – the nativity scene, starring Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus.
“Jesus is the reason of the season,” said the school’s parade float coordinator, Monica Williams. “That’s our main point, to remind everyone that it’s Jesus’ birthday.”
Float entries into the Cambridge Christmas Parade are still open, closing next Friday, November 22 at 5pm. Entries can be made through the Cambridge i-SITE.
