Freezin' for a Reason: The Minneapolis Holidazzle Parade

By Lisa Kroulik © November 10, 2011

Yes, we know we’re crazy here. If you live in a climate where cold means wearing a light jacket, you couldn’t begin to understand sitting outside for a parade in December with temperatures typically hovering well below 32 degrees, the official point of “freezing.” Heck, 32 degrees in December would be downright balmy around these parts. Mother Nature would have to do better than that to cancel the Holidazzle Parade.

In its nearly 20-year history, the parade has only been cancelled 10 times due to extreme cold. And by extreme, we’re talking wind chill factors greater than 25 degrees below zero or so much snow that the streets are blocked.

When the Mall of America, which is the largest enclosed shopping center and amusement park in the United States, opened its doors in Bloomington in 1992, downtown Minneapolis figured it should have its share of holiday shoppers and diners. Someone pitched the idea for a winter parade to get folks downtown and hopefully put them in the mood for opening their wallets later. The winter parade was officially coined the Holidazzle, perhaps in reverence to it having enough shining lights to have its own electric company.

For the 20^th winter in a row, more than 300,000 hearty Minnesotans are expected to turn out to watch the Holidazzle Parade. If you’ve never seen it before, think of your typical parade and add a string of lights to everything -- from the floats, to the bands to the costumed characters making their way down the street. Each year, the focus is on different storybook and television characters that children would easily recognize, from Sleeping Beauty to the cast of Saturday morning Nickelodeon shows.

The Holidazzle parade runs from the Friday after Thanksgiving to the Sunday before Christmas. It starts at 6:30 pm and runs every Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday during that time. Each night features a different sponsor, Grand Marshal, choir and marching band. The Grand Marshal is typically a local celebrity personality such as a TV anchor or radio host.

Before the start of every parade, volunteers from the Emergency Food Shelf Network walk the parade route and collect donations of non-perishable food items and cash. More than $400,000 has been collected since 1998, which has provided more than one million meals.

As rich as the history of the Holidazzle parade is, it will also forever be associated with tragedy. In December 1998, during a parade that started just like any other one, a police van lost control and plowed into a crowd of parade goers, killing 5-month-old Blake McCarty and his great-aunt, 35-year-old Denise Keenan. Eleven other people were injured.

In the investigation that followed, it was discovered that the police van had an issue with sudden acceleration. The Minneapolis Police Department immediately put all 32 of its similar vans out of commission. Several of the victims later filed suit against the city of Minneapolis.

The 2011 Holidazzle Parade is set to open on Friday, November 25 with Target Stores as its sponsor. If you plan to go to this year’s parade, the schedule of activities is included in the link below. The official site of the Holidazzle Parade also gives you tips to stay warm, directions, information on parking and where to shop afterwards.