Santa’s elves are busy preparing for the town of Maxeys annual Christmas Parade this Saturday, marking the sixth year in a row that holiday revelers will enjoy this newly minted tradition.
The parade will start at 11 a.m. in downtown Maxeys, and feature Santa Claus, holiday floats, tractors and other festive accouterments.
“Our whole goal is to create an event for families to make some really sweet Christmas memories,” organizer Heather Parham said.
A Christmas market with local vendors and food trucks will open at 10 a.m. Following the parade, Noteworthy, the University of Georgia’s all treble a cappella group, will perform Christmas tunes, and a $1 raffle will take place featuring prizes donated by local businesses.
Children and families will have the opportunity to meet Santa after the parade.
Resident and Maxeys Community Club president Carrie Hayes said the parade has helped put the town back on the map.
“It started just for those of us living in Maxeys to have fun and make a little float, and then it grew and opened up to the county and surrounding areas,” Hayes said. “I think it really has put us more on the map. People no longer say, ‘On, where’s Maxeys?’ They know already. That is nice.”
Hayes and Parham have been on the planning committee from the start, and Parham said part of what inspired her to get involved were fond memories she made attending parades in her mother’s small town of Alderson, West Virginia, as a child.
Like Maxeys, Alderson is a small, rural town, and if officials there could pull off a huge parade and the festive atmosphere to go with it, Parham thought, why not Maxeys?
“I had always grown up going to my mom’s small town, and they had this huge Fourth of July parade,” Parham said. “I would go see all the fire trucks and old tractors and groups of Shriners in their tiny cars. It was so fun.
“I was like, ‘I can help make that for my hometown.’ And so I decided to join the parade committee and offered my help, and eventually got myself in charge of it.”
Six years in, Parham said attendance grows bigger every year. She recommends parade goers get there early to secure parking.
Organizers said vendors from throughout Oglethorpe County and the surrounding area will sell their homemade and artisanal wares, including hand-crafted jewelry and wooden crafts to baked goods and artisanal bath and body products.
Alex Perri is a master’s student in journalism at the University of Georgia. She previously worked at the Transylvania Times in Brevard, North Carolina.