Gallery of Past Club Events
Middleburg Christmas Parade
December 4, 2010
Submitted by Bill Marshall
We joined with our friends of the MG Car Club on December 4th to participate in the annual Middleburg Christmas Parade. Unlike last year’s shortened event in a sloppy snow, this year’s was held under sunny skies with a brisk chill in the air – capturing the flavor of the season in Virginia Hunt Country.
With Charlie and Alana’s MGA still down for head repairs, they generously volunteered to drive my MGB GT in the parade, giving it some much needed miles as it has been rather neglected this year. Charlie picked up it Friday to take it to their home for a bit of polishing and in pure MG fashion, the battery went dead overnight and would not start Saturday morning without some added juice provided by jumper cables.
Once on the road they met Karen and me in Manassas and we were off to Middleburg to meet with the 11 other MGs gathered for the event. Joining us there were Bob and Jane Schoeplein in Jane’s MGB and Jim Mackin, filling out the roster of MGAs at two. As we parked at our designated staging area at the American Legion Hall, we advised Charlie to park in a downhill direction in case a push-start was required. We then began the task of decorating the cars in the holiday spirit and waited for our slot to be called as we socialized in the parking lot.
And yes, as we were called to line up, Charlie signaled for a push – a task that would be repeated throughout the remainder of the day.
It is unfortunate we don’t get to actually see the parade as it seems the whole town turned out for the event. Spectators filled both sides of the four blocks of the parade route and this year we got as many compliments on our funky Santa hats as we did the MGA. We also discovered our group followed a group of horses as their path was … ah …“documented” throughout the parade route.
After the parade was over we returned to Middleburg by circumnavigating the back roads of the outskirts of town as the main roads continued to be closed to traffic. Once finding our way back to the American Legion Hall for parking, we joined the MGCC members for lunch at Julien’s Café and Restaurant where the club organizers Jim and Jane Byers had made reservations. This is a delightful way to spend a December Saturday morning and I encourage all to mark their calendars for December 3, 2011.
