christmas

Did I die and go to heaven? 😉

Our town has a history of having a Christmas street parade every
year. This year’s had a praise and worship thing going on before the
actual parade and was held at the Sibu town square. I went there at
around 7 pm with Ting Chuan.

Silent night, holy night.

There weren’t many floats around this year though, there used to be
heaps and there was a competition to see which one was the best. I
don’t know if they still have that competition going on, but there
wasn’t a lot of floats around.

The drivers of the floats actually need guides to navigate.

The crowd watching the procession.

Anyway, after the church service was over, the procession started
with a float followed by several walking groups and then another float
and so on.

Cherubic mascots on a boat float.

A float mounted on a trishaw.

The back of a float.

Ghetto.

A float with a nativity scene.

There were groups of various denominations and churches. There were
a lot of bands which are affiliated with church groups too like the
Boys Brigade and the Girls Brigade, to name a few.

A very satanic looking Santa Claus with huge heart shaped testicles giving everyone the finger.

I also stumbled upon my church’s (Wesley Methodist Church) group and
one of the lay leaders invited me to join their entourage. I didn’t
feel like walking though, just wanted to take a couple of photos, so I
declined. I also saw my ex-college’s group who was also part of the
procession. I saw Remy, someone I haven’t seen in several years. We
used to talk a lot in college and it’s good to see her again.

Remy and myself.

Anyway, going back to the floats, there was two in particular that
stood out. One had a giant TV screen showing Christmas carol movies
complete with karaoke style lyrics at the bottom. The other had several
girls dressed as angels standing on the float, which we all agreed were
aesthetically pleasing. Hmm…am I talking about the float or the angels?

A closer look at one of the angels.

There was also a massive police presence to provide crowd control
and several streets were closed off to traffic to make way for the
procession. There was this group with children carrying balloons. On a
whim, I stopped one cute little girl who didn’t look more than 6 years
old who had two balloons and asked her for one, and she gave one of
hers to me. hehehe Thanks dear!

Well, we were standing near the exit of the town square so we
managed to see the procession first. It wasn’t really long, perhaps the
whole parade took 25 minutes.

Cute.

Frilly.

There was something nice that happened though. A pretty girl dressed
as an angel who was giving out sweets gave me one. I was pretty
surprised as they only gave those to children so I looked up and who
did I see but Alice Lim! She’s from my high school, I was in Form 5
when she was in Form 1, but I know her from seeing her pass by my
father’s office every day to get the record attendance book (she was
the class monitor). It’s good to see her again and I’m glad she still
recognizes me.

Alice in the parade.

Anyway, after the procession, we walked around Wisma Sanyan for a
while and came out the other side only to find the procession winding
up there. We joined and walked with the procession for a while and I
gave my balloon to a balloon-less little girl standing in the crowd.
She was shy and her mom told her to say “thank you”. Heh. That’s my
good deed for the day. My car was blocked by the procession, so we had
to wait for a while until all the groups have finished. I did see Alice
again though when the parade came back around and snapped a pic, and
she said Merry Christmas. 🙂

This is a clearer picture of Alice taken 6 months ago.