Staff Writer
LIMESTONE — On Nov 30, the annual Christmas Lights Parade was held in Limestone. There were over 20 entries into the parade this year. In previous years, attendance had been down to less than ten participants. Increased prizes were offered as incentive to get the public participation up, but most who participated weren’t thinking about prizes. Albert Trucking won a $100 cash prize for best lights on float, and the Limestone Fire Department won $100 for best theme. Both prizes were donated to Toys for Tots.
Aroostook Republican photo/Natalie Bazinet
Santa, Mrs. Claus, and friends checked the tree twice before lighting it Friday on High Street in Caribou.
“It took about three hours to put all the decorations on the truck,” said Jamie Albert, who won for having the best lights, “we started decorating this afternoon. We had no idea what we were going to do, we just started decorating.”
“We only decided that we were going to do this on Saturday,” said the driver of the winning truck, Tim Thibodeau.
Much in the spirit of the season, there weren’t any hard feelings regarding the judging.
“This is just to have fun,” said Cindy McConnell, “I’m very grateful that we had such a big turnout; it made for a nice time.”
McConnell owns a beauty shop in Limestone, and teamed up with her landlord/owner of Limestone Grocery to enter the float in the parade.
“In the past years they’ve only had a few floats, so we thought that this year we’d put one more in,” McConnell added.
Throughout the parade, the Limestone Fire Department collected Toys for Tots and Feed the County collected food donations.
“This is our second year with the Limestone Lights parade,” said Shane Theriault. Theriault drove the truck for the Feed the County with his two daughters by his side, “we usually participate in the Presque Isle parade as well.”
Erin Kovach came from Woodland to see the parade.
“I think Limestone is very popular for the light parade,” she said, “Presque Isle does the big one but Limestone does a real nice one too.”
Kovach said that she likes to see the different floats and all the work that people put into making them look so nice.
Though the evening was cold, boy scouts Nicholas Whitehead and Danny Cote made sure to keep a bonfire going to help keep everyone warm.
This was the first year that the boy scouts provided the bonfire.
Both Whitehead and Cote have been going to the light parade for a number of years.
“For this many people to show up in this small of a town for the parade is a good thing,” said Whitehead.
The winner of the third prize, a pizza party for up to 25 people, was the sophomore class of Limestone High School.
Aroostook Republican photos/Natalie Bazinet
A local youth holds a flashlight for Santa while he reads A Night Before Christmas for an audience.
This truck, entered in the parade by the Limestone Fire Department, was decorated with red lights on the body and white lights on the grill.
Entered in the parade by the Limestone Fire Department, this truck was completely covered in multi-colored lights. The Limestone Fire Department won $100 for best portrayal of the theme “Christmas for Everyone.” The Fire Department donated their prize to Toys for Tots.
Sharing a cup of hot chocolate while listening to Santa read “Twas the Night Before Christmas“— it just doesn’t get much better.
