Rain cancels Dundee Christmas parade
The Dundees have not been getting along with the weather this year.
Saturday’s Spirit of Christmas parade was canceled due to rain, the same thing that happened to Dundee Township’s Memorial Day parade.
“We can deal with the cold — it adds to the ambience — but rain is a problem,” West Dundee Trustee Becky Gillam said. “The weather is not our friend.”
Also canceled were Santa’s workshop and a petting zoo at Grafelman Park. “It was going to be a muddy mess,” Gillam said.
But the decision disappointed many residents for whom attending the parade has become a tradition.
West Dundee resident Ron Morvay, his 10-year-old son Dylan and Dylan’s friend, Patrick Ulm, stood under an awning along the otherwise empty Main Street in downtown West Dundee, hoping that a parade would materialize.
“We haven’t missed one of these in 10 years,” Morvay said.
When 10 a.m. came and went, the trio decided it was time to give up.
“I am disappointed. I like everything about the parade, it’s so nice,” Dylan said, while Patrick held a plastic bag that he had hoped to fill with candy.
Longtime resident Mike Buhrmann said he thought this was the first time the parade was canceled in its 20 or so years.
“I think they probably could have had it,” Buhrmann said, adding that his granddaughter Emily just became a Girl Scout Daisy and had really been looking forward to being in a parade for the first time.
Still, the three-day “Dickens in Dundee” celebration offered lots of indoor activities on Saturday.
Some bought gifts, like Leslie Small of West Dundee, her husband Andy, and their daughters Paige, 3, and Lilly, 6. The family got cookies, a Christmas music box and a gift for grandma at the Dundee Township Historical Society’s “Dickens of a Christmas Sale” held at Bethlehem Lutheran Church.
“I think it’s awesome,” Leslie Small said of the holiday events. “We love all these things they do.”
Jenny Fernandez of Sleepy Hollow helped her children Omari, 1, Jenaci, 4, and Luis, 12, make a gingerbread house with Froot Loops, M&M’s, marshmallows, and other goodies at First United Methodist Church in West Dundee.
“Jenaci wanted to see Santa at the parade, but I think we’re going to go to the mall to see him,” she said.
Check online at dickensindundee.org for the list of Sunday’s “Dickens in Dundee” events.