The DU Lounge

The year my daughter was 9, (1993) our social chairman decided we needed a great fun thing which included our kids. So she entered us in the Fort Worth Parade of Lights Christmas Parade. The theme for the parade was "The 12 Days of Christmas" The only requirement was every float or group had to had lights on it/them. (all of us wore those little battery operated mini light strings )

So we decided we were going to BE the 12 Days of Christmas - all of them! We had a flatbed hooked to a truck, decorated it with lights and greenery for all the small kiddos with some moms to keep the little ones on the flat and standing up in the middle was one of our members who was quite pregnant and wearing a bird suit.
The Partridge in the Pear Tree....
FOllowed by"

Two Ninja Turtle Doves (a pair of 9 yr old boys in Ninja Turtle outfits)
Three French Men (3 members dressed up like French men with berets, etc) They said "Oh it was supposed to be HENS?)
Four Calling Birds Four women with handsets from princess phones, dialing and talking
Five Golden Hula Hoops Five women with gold spraypainted hula hoops
Six Geese A a laying: Straw wreaths around their waists, with large fake eggs glued on
Seven Swans A Swimming: Feather boas and snorkel gear of course
Eight Maids a Milking Milkmaid outfits - 6 women and 2 men - and the men were in hilarious drag. We had an extra character: a woman in a cow suit
Nine Drummers.. toy snare drums and band hats
10 pipers... bubble flutes
11 ladies dancing: All of our girls wore their recent dance recital outfits and high kicked it all the way with cartwheels
12 Lords a Leaping A row of our men, wearing white longjohns with red and green silk boxers over them. When we sang the song they would all jump up together and yell "LEAP!" (the purpose this group was two fold: 1. being silly with the theme along with the rest of us and 2. Making sure none of the dancing girls got separated from us. In all our subsequent parade appearances, the "Back Row" of these 12 men became a fixture.

We won First Prize in the Walking Unit Division. We still sing it every year in our class the Sunday before CHristmas, and we act out our parts. We are often joined by our kids and their kids to sing carols and eat Christmas cookies. (We did the parade 3 more times and won first place in 2 of them)

We marched in the parade 3 more years, and collected two more First Place Ribbons.