(This is Part 1 of a 3-part series.)
For decades, people have been making memories while braving wind and weather — sometimes sleet and heavy rain — to watch the Downtown Mooresville Christmas parade.
Many a warm story begins with a cold parade day on Main Street in Mooresville, always held on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. This year was one of the relative few when the weather gods rained on our parade — literally.
As expected, the dreary weather deterred a lot of would-be parade participants — and the usual crowd of thousands of spectators — from showing up. But a brave, committed few, as always, set their camping chairs out hours early at their favorite viewing spots along Main Street. They covered them in trash bags and tarps to keep them dry.
This isn’t the first time Mooresville has experienced a rainy parade day, but social media — which, of course, wasn’t a thing during the first several decades of the town’s parade — was flooded with comments from people who were frustrated that the parade wasn’t rescheduled. That got natives and transplants alike talking about the quirky parts of the town’s beloved parade: Why is it on a Tuesday? Why a Christmas parade before Thanksgiving? Why does it start at 3 p.m.? Why doesn’t the parade have a rain date?
Some parents expressed frustration that the Mooresville Graded School District dismisses early on parade day while the Iredell-Statesville Schools System does not. A couple parents complained that they miss watching their kids in the parade every year because it’s a weekday and they have to work. Businesses that look forward to the parade in part for the promotion of it were disappointed. If those businesses had families that incurred expenses for their child(ren) to participate in the parade, reasonable or not, the business owners faced the real potential of backlash from angry parents.
So with all these little parade quirks in mind, the Scoop decided to get to the bottom of things. We reached out to the organizers (psst they’re volunteers … our neighbors … not the local government), and we think you’ll be surprised at what we learned.
Door 2: The Ghost of Christmas Past
Jump to Door 3: He’s making a list and checking it twice
One thought on “Better not pout, I’m telling you why”
Thank you for giving us some insight into this tradition. I’m looking forward to learning more.