When I was growing up, I swore I was never going to live in Hooper. It was a backwards, little town full of hicks. Quite honestly, the only things I really knew about the town was that they had a tiny post office adjacent to a tiny grocery store and they did a demolition derby each year. Plus, I met a few people from there who spoke a bit country…but those people were in my home town, too.
Jump forward 20 plus years and I am so thankful to live in Hooper. It is different and delightful! I’m especially fond of the old timers.
One such old timer has made it a tradition to share his love of Christmas. The first week of December, we got a flyer on our door telling us the time and showing us the route of the Santa Parade. It was coming right through our neighborhood on a Sunday evening. How cool is that?
We had to walk all of 3 houses to the corner and Santa would come right by! We were early and it was a bit cold, but the boys were great. The “parade” would go up the street behind our house first before coming into our neighborhood, so when we ran home for a pit stop, the boys were put on the look-out. They saw the single float parade and started squealing. Back to our corner they ran!
Santa was driving a fully lit tractor and pulling a trailer with carolers singing and a cage holding the Grinch. Several of our neighbors were out to see it go by as well. Neighbors without children. Just people who wanted to enjoy the spirit of Santa.
When he got to our little group, Santa stopped his tractor, climbed down, and passed out candy to the kids. It was hard to get good pictures because it was so dark (and my fingers might have been a bit cold), but this is it for a Santa picture this year.
Bobby didn’t like it. He saw that tractor coming and started to cry. Then he started to kick and squirm and got louder and louder in his protesting! Hmm, maybe that’s another reason I didn’t get very good pictures.
Hooper Santa … he’s the best!