By Julian MITCHELL, intern

The Montrose Christmas Parade is ringing in the holidays once again this year.

The 42nd annual parade will be held on Saturday, Dec. 1 at 6:10 p.m. in the Montrose Shopping Park along Honolulu Avenue.

For the first time, the parade will have a theme and that theme will be “Let Our Lights Shine.”

“We want people to know there is a lot of hope in this world,” said Steve Pierce, a member of the Montrose Christmas Parade volunteer committee.

Building on that theme, participants of the parade will be asked to incorporate lights into their entries.

The parade will feature 125 different entries and roughly 25,000 people are expected to be in attendance. Parade-goers will have the chance to cheer on equestrian units, safety personnel, Scout troops, nonprofit organizations and more. As always, the parade will start off with a motorcade of Glendale police officers followed shortly by none other than the big man himself: Santa Claus.

Santa will be flying over the parade route in a helicopter, waving hello to everyone as he races by. Of course he will still have time to get back and cap the parade off in his traditional ride through Montrose.

“Everyone is happy, everyone comes together. It’s a time to forget what’s going on in the world,” said Pierce.

The voices of the parade will be new this year, too. Longtime emcees Jane Kane and Rick Dinger are taking a break so the husband and wife team of Leila and Vince Bell will taking over duties on Dec. 1.

The grand marshals this year are the father-son duo of Mike and Pete Smith of Bob Smith Toyota. The committee always chooses someone as marshal who has been an integral part of the community and who has not been grand marshal before.

The parade this year will also be highlighting women in business. Along those lines, new Adventist Health Glendale President Alice Issai will be honored at this year’s parade.

The parade committee is also hoping that those who come to watch the parade will be mindful of traffic hazards, both on the parade route and around it. For those in Montrose, there will not be handouts or candy thrown during the parade from entries. This is to encourage those sitting along the street, especially children, from running onto the parade route. As for vehicle traffic around the parade, the committee is urging motorists to use La Crescenta Avenue if there is a need to travel south past the parade route. Many other ways will be blocked off for parade traffic, too.

For more information or for those who wish to donate to the Montrose Christmas Parade, please visit montrosechristmasparade.com.

  Julian MITCHELL