Photo by Freddie Herpin
Chief Photographer
BOBBY ARDOIN
Contributing Writer
With so many spectators wearing shorts and t-shirts, it might have seemed as though Landry Street was hosting a summer parade.
However there was no mistaking this occasion.
Instead the colorful floats which featured Santa-capped riders tossing candy and other items to the large, excitable crowd that lined the one-way thoroughfare made the Thursday night scene look a lot like Christmas.
Indeed. The city-sponsored annual Christmas Parade was back, rolling past of the middle of Opelousas with authority.
Those who assembled on the street in two and three-deep lines, scrambled for loot delivered from the floats, while others held up their hands, shouting and begging to be noticed by the parade-riders.
The renewal of the annual event postponed last year by the pandemic, delivered a response that resembled the sizable crowds which had always packed the downtown area for the parades held in previous years.
In addition to the floats, local high school bands marched down the streets, street vendors displayed food for sale and people in the crowd reacted to the music with sidewalk and street dancing.
As Mayor Julius Alsandor told a Lafayette television reporter, Opelousas at least for a few hours, came together in an event everyone enjoyed.
