Parades: Art is Mobile

As I mentioned in earlier posts, we were able to watch the Rose Parade on New Years Day. The Rose Parade has to be my number one favorite parade! I love the flowers and I've always wished I could see it up close. Well, I got my wish.

It was a lot of effort to get our seats, but we were able to sit right on the curb -- it was fantastic. My oldest two sons would probably say it wasn't worth a 4 hour sleep night, but they liked it too. We owe them for our spots, because they helped save the space during the night. We dropped them off at 1:30, and didn't get back to the hotel till almost 2:30. In the AM. sigh.

Anyway -- it was cool. I've always wondered who thinks up what to put on these floats. I'm not talking about the them of the parade, which was "Hat's Off to Entertainment", I'm talking about how they decorate them. In case you're not familiar with it, the whole point of the Rose Parade is that everything you put on the outside of the float -- everything that is SEEN -- has to be organic. We saw everything from fruit to seeds and beans and whole plants. It was amazing.

What boggled my mind was the variety of plants. Who knew there were so many different kinds of plants, and that they were available to be purchased? I would imagine there has to be whole committees for these things, overseeing the organizing, purchasing, volunteering, etc. for each float. We heard that one float, the one depicting India, or India's Bollywood, cost over $50,000. That's a lot of money for one float.


And the man hours! Do you realize that these floats are not started being decorated until the weekend before New Years? The framework and everything is done, but the flowers and all are done by hundreds of volunteers who come from as far as the east coast to work on these things. We met one who was staying at our hotel that had come out Sunday night to join friends that had come out on Friday. They have been doing this for eight years. I call that amazing dedication.

I'm sure most of them think they are contributing to art.

Because these floats are simply amazing. After watching it for years on television and getting that one angled view of it, I was thrilled to be able to see the floats on Friday afterward. They have them on display for three days, and it's amazing to see them up close, and see that they used seed for this, or corn husks for that. Through the camera lens, they look so much different.

They range from true art,

to the silly.

But all of it is flowers or plants. Isn't it just astounding?

I think of the person who looks at the design and says, "hey, I think we can use this plant, or this seed. What about those strange looking flowers they grow down in South America?" I mean, nothing is outside the realm of possibility.



In this one, if you look close you can see the woman who is inside the flower dress. The dress is actually flowers! It was another gorgeous float.

In this one, for China, there was this gorgeous macaw. Of course the parade had all the usual bands and horses, but I'm going to cover the horses on my next blog. This one is dedicated to flowers -- one of Heavenly Father's loveliest creations.

Simply amazing.

Return to the Neighborhood.

And while you're there, subscribe to our fantastic newsletter. In addition to being able to shop in the new virtual neighborhood, our newsletter brings you articles, products, services, resources and interviews from around the world—all with an LDS focus. Look for issues delivered to your email inbox every week on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday.

Neighborhood Newsletter Subscriptions are FREE, and joining is easy.