Uxbridge Holiday First Night

One of the things we like about Uxbridge is its small town quirkiness. Take the Holiday First Night celebration - please! It's a quaint little town get together where Santa comes in on a fire truck to the town common and lights the Christmas lights to start the official Christmas season. It's just about what you'd expect - Deb's choral group sings Christmas carols, various groups serve cookies and hot chocolate, and the local banks and businesses open up with other types of entertainment and refreshments.

So, at first blush, it seems normal enough. But if you step back for just a minute and really look at what is happening, it's pretty freakin' weird.

First, let's talk about the animals. There's a petting zoo. OK, maybe it's not that strange to set up a small pen on the common and put goats in it for the kids to pet. But then there are the "other" animals like small alligators, millipedes, and chinchillas. I just picture an alligator lurking in the Nativity, licking his chops at the chance at an absolutely "perfect" snack.

Then there are the street vendors. These guys show up at the fourth of July and other parades selling light sticks and assorted other glowing things and here they are again. So now you've got hundreds of little kids running around waving lighted *swords* and whirling glow in the dark tubes over their heads! They aren't even Christmas colored!

Early on, the police block off main street for the parade that will bring Santa to the common and people line up to get a good spot on the curb. The excitement builds as you hear the siren and see the flashing lights coming over the hill. But wait, it's not Santa's fire truck, it's a truck from the neighboring town of Douglas. Oh and next we have a truck from Mendon with an inflatable Grinch on top. Then, there's a truck from Upton, an ambulance from Holliston (an ambulance?), an old time, open-air fire truck with two guys who look like their core temperature is about 1 degree above freezing, another truck from Rhode Island with an animatronic Santa (that Deb thought was the real Santa and wondered why he wasn't stopping to light the tree), and then several more trucks from even more towns near and far in various types of decoration. If somebody knocked over a candle, the whole of southern Mass. would go up in flames while all these fire trucks struggled to get out of town and strip off the 4 tons of Christmas lights (and portable generators that power them) before they could start spraying water.

So now there's a big delay in the parade. Nothing is coming down the street and the people are wandering out in the street looking confused. Wait, I can see some flashing lights and hear a marching band. Yes, it's the Douglas High School marching band. That's correct - Uxbridge doesn't have a marching band so we have to "borrow" the band from our neighbors to have a band in our parade. Yeah, we hate them throughout the year but come parade time, all is forgiven. After the band comes, is it? Yes, it's the Blackstone Valley Pop Warner (PeeWee) football organization. Of course it is.

Then there's Charlie Brown and Lucy walking down the street. And I think that's got to be Snoopy with an old time pilot's helmet on. Yeah, that's got to be it. I'm pretty sure that Charles Shultz estate would not approve of that costume...

Here's a float - OK, "float" is maybe a bit generous. It's Chevy Blazer pulling what looks to be the bed of an old pickup truck that has been cut from its cab long ago. The important thing, I guess, is that it has the ubiquitous generator powering a couple of strings of lights randomly arranged on some 2x4's that frame the perimeter. There are people standing on the platform throwing candy to the... no wait, it's not candy it's...confetti? Yes, I think those are small handfuls of confetti that are basically blowing right back in the faces of the people who are throwing it.

Next up is another trailer, this time with what appears to be a "stock car" on it with two kids sitting on the rear trunk with their feet going in through the (missing) back window. This car looks to be the type that you would see in "local" car races but I'm struck again with the thought "Why are they here?" And if that didn't pose enough of a question, the next item up for review certainly does. At first it looks like another stock car on a trailer but wait, this one turns out to be totally wrecked! The weird thing is that there are no markings of any kind. If it at least said "Happy Holidays from the Demolition Derby" or "This could happen to you if you drive after Christmas Parties" there would be some kind of connection but there's just nothing. Huh?

Next up, we have what looks like a Nativity scene. OK, cool, this is more like it. We've got the straw, the wise men, the spotlight in the East, and yes, that *must* be baby Jesus being held up by the neck and waved around by that six year old in the turban.

After that we have - a Trolley. Hmm. It says it's the official tour trolley for the Boston Red Sox and yes, it's pulling over to the curb and disgorging passengers. This takes several minutes as some people try to get on and those inside try to get out. Meanwhile, the 18 wheeler behind it (more on that in a minute) is laying on his horn to try and keep the parade moving. The Trolley, finally empty, pulls across the road into the bank parking lot (where it we figure it probably should have stopped to unload in the first place) and the parade continues.

As I said, the next vehicle is a tractor-trailer. Just in time, someone comes on the PA and announces that the Grand Marshall of the parade is none other than - wait for it - Hannaford Supermarkets! No, not the President of Hannaford Supermarkets. Not the manager of the local store, it's the whole company. And they've brought their truck.

After that, it's what looks like a large delivery truck with a hatch on top occupied by - you guessed it - Ronald MacDonald. We half expected him to reach down into a greasy bag and start chucking fries at the crowd.

Finally, there's the fire truck with Santa. He dismounts and comes over to the Holiday Circuit Breaker, the announcer does a count down (hesitating briefly on the number that comes next after "4"), and the lights go on.

Now, we've seen the maintenance crews putting the lights up in the days preceding the parade and and it looks like they are taking care to artfully arrange them in the perfect Holiday pattern. In the end though, it just looks like the Jolly Green Giant grabbed a handful of lights, heaved them up in the air, and let them fall where they may.

Did we say how much we love this town?

Results and Soccer Vids

Well, the girls lost their State Semi game. The game was held about an hour and a half west of here in Westfield. The school got a couple of buses for the kids to go support the girls and we drove out as well. By game time - 7:00 pm - it was about 26 degrees but thankfully dead calm. The other team scored about 3 minutes in and then put another one in early in the second half. Our girls made a valiant effort but they couldn't put much offense together. The whole town is still really proud of them and it was a fun ride.

Meanwhile...

I've been using YouTube to host my videos - primarily because it is so popular. I've always had a problem with the quality of the videos though. Regardless of the quality of the video that you upload to them, they re-process the video into what is called Flash so that it is playable on all kinds of different computers. In the process however, the quality is drastically reduced.

Well, there are competitors to YouTube and so I recently tried out Vimeo. I uploaded the music video and the slide show I did for the Girls Soccer team and I think they look pretty good. Check them out and see what you think.



2008 Uxbridge Girls Soccer from Tom Hudgins on Vimeo.



2008 Uxbridge Girls Soccer Slide Show from Tom Hudgins on Vimeo.