The long wait is over: I finally get to be HoliDazzled

BY EILEEN BRADY
THE NEWS JOURNAL OF WILMINGTON, OHIO

It was almost six years ago that I wrote about the idea of creating a holiday parade in downtown Wilmington. After the column appeared, I became part of the committee to create Wilmington’s HomeTown HoliDazzle, working at the outset with several of the people who have labored tirelessly every year since then to make HoliDazzle come to life each November. 
However, I’ve never actually been able to experience HoliDazzle in person, which broke my heart.
The military moved our family in the fall of that year, a couple months before the first parade, and we haven’t been able to travel at Thanksgiving. 
I do remember receiving beautifully detailed, thoughtful emails from friends and fellow committee members who attended and enjoyed that first HoliDazzle parade in 2007 — it made me feel a connection, however small, when I was hundreds of miles away.
The military moved our family back to Wilmington this summer, so I am pretty darn thrilled to experience my first HoliDazzle (and Merry TubaChristmas!) on Saturday, which will be the sixth annual event. HoliDazzle brings 10,000 people to downtown Wilmington each year, and I cannot wait to be one of them. 
Following is the original column, published in the News Journal on Jan. 4, 2007.
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​I stood in downtown Lebanon with 39,999 other people early in December and thought, “What does Lebanon have that Wilmington doesn’t have?” I mean, we have a quaint and picturesque downtown, with its beautiful architecture, active business community and government offices that haven’t relocated to a strip mall. 
A few of the best restaurants in town even eke out business in the midst of a chain nation.
So why were thousands of people gathering in downtown Lebanon instead of downtown Wilmington? Why were people shelling out money all over Warren County?
A parade. A holiday parade.
Everyone loves a parade. But not just any parade, I’ve come to believe. A parade with a twist. A parade with specificity. A parade like Lebanon’s annual horse-and-carriage parade, which drew an estimated 80,000 people (40,000 in the afternoon, and 40,000 in the evening) and brought participants from hundreds of miles away.
The mild weather helped this year’s attendance in Lebanon, but I also saw thousands turn out in last year’s bitter cold and freezing rain. 
Lebanon cashes in on its historic appeal by harking back to the pre-automobile era, with horse-drawn carriages decked out in jingle bells and sparkling lights.
Towns in eastern North Carolina, where my husband and I have lived, capitalize on their nautical appeal by holding Christmas flotillas, parades of boats decked out in lights, viewed by multitudes of people in waterfront downtowns.
Heck, we even drove 600 miles to see a flotilla this year. OK, so we technically went for Thanksgiving with friends, but a medical emergency nixed those dinner plans and thus made room for the flotilla to become the highlight of the trip. 
The point is that a holiday parade is a perfect way to show off a downtown and open local doors to people with Christmas lists in hand and money in their pockets.
So I propose a New Year’s thought (I wouldn’t dare create resolutions for anyone), borrowing on an idea from my adopted hometown of Richlands, N.C.: Let’s start a nighttime tractor parade.
That’s right — our farmers can bedazzle their John Deeres, make merry with their Massey Fergusons and alight their Allis-Chalmers tractors.
They can compete for bragging rights. They can celebrate their final long nights in the fields. They can bring us, our kids, our parents and our friends into downtown Wilmington in the middle of the cold months.
Along with celebrating Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Eid or winter solstice, we can celebrate our city’s farming roots.
We’re a farming city — our only “skyscraper” is a feed mill.
We’re a farming county — with 840 farms, according to the 2000 census.
We do it well, and we should create our niche with the area’s only nighttime tractor parade.
It might start small, as the Lebanon parade did, but it could likely morph into a regional event. Antique tractor owners might trailer their model B tractors from parts unknown to get a chance to show off for an appreciative audience.
Urbanites might bring their kids here, and we’d gladly take their cash.
There’s a whole year now before the Wilmington Tractor Spectacular would have to begin. Think we could do it?