Just ahead of this was a flatbed with seemingly 30 young kids on it, with the truck followed by about 20 women in traditional Hispanic costumes, dancing -- too poor lighting for a good photograph. The car itself was just getting ready to enter the parade after an hour and the spot was fairly dark. It's a Chevrolet from the late 1960's, a period when they all looked similar.

Pictures of the Holiday Parade in Hanford, CA. None of these pictures are great, and some are fairly weak, but I wanted to show a holiday celebration in what is a relatively large farm city in California’s Central Valley.

This is nowhere near the number of floats/contingents. The paraded last an hour and there were no empty spots, there must have been 100 or more entries. What impressed me was how many spectators there were, how much they enjoyed it, and how much it was very much a down-to-earth event. The spectators were a very mixed group with many who looked like they worked in the local agricultural industry.

Very many of the floats were pick-up trucks pulling flat-bed trailers, or just a flat-bed trucks. NOTHING that looked like it had been put together by professionals. I hadn’t gone to Hanford for the parade, but considering how negative the world has been these days, it was quite encouraging to see such a large and happy crowd.