Gallery of Past Club Events
Middleburg Christmas Parade
December 5, 2009
Submitted by Bill Marshall
Our driving activity for the month of December was planned to take advantage of the MG Car Club's participation in the Middleburg Christmas Parade on Saturday, December 5th.
The MGCC has participated in this parade for a number of years and many of us have attended to showoff our MGAs to the crowd of spectators the parade attracts.
This year things were moving along just fine with 14 MGs signed up to take part in the Parade. As always MGCC hosting members Jim & Jane Byers made reservations at the Coach Stop restaurant for the group to relax after the completion of the event and to enjoy lunch with our fellow MG enthusiasts.
Jim added a little something special this year to bring forth a bit of that Christmas spirit with the addition of snow! Our plans had been to drive the MGA making the MGB GT available for Charlie and Alana Adams to use as his newly acquired MGA (yes – a second one) still needed a once over before hitting the road. The snow caused many to leave their cars safely in their garages and led us to scrap our plans to drive the MGA. Charlie and Alana were not eager to venture out in a borrowed MG in the snow so Karen and I decided the now-available B would be warm and dry changed plans once again.
Undaunted by the snow and being assured by Jim the parade would continue despite the weather, we loaded the MGB GT with our "display" packages and headed off to Middleburg to join the die-hards we knew would be there.
Once at the American Legion Hall staging area we were greeted by Jim and Jane and we quickly determined the two cars would be the sole representatives of the MGCC for this year and that the parade would move forward rather quickly as many of the marching bands and other participants made the choice to look forward to 2010. As our turn in line came, Jim and I decided to use an in-line formation that would "stretch out" the cars rather than the traditional side-by-side formation typically used. Despite the weather there were many spectators lining the streets and we made our way down Washington Street to the cheers of admiration of the cars, bright flashbulbs and of course the calls of "I had one just like that in …."
With the parade moving quickly we finished well before our 1 pm lunch reservation, and after some consideration decided heading home before the snow got deeper was the wise choice to make.
The Middleburg Christmas Parade is an enjoyable event and we encourage all to mark the calendars for December 4, 2010 and make plans to join us – with snow tires being optional!
