'It’s a lot about family and community.' Tradition brings crowds to fill A-K Valley streets for Christmas parade

Storm clouds and winter temperatures don’t faze Jamie Ganss.

The power of tradition brings the Brackenridge woman every year to the corner of Corbet Street and Third Avenue in Tarentum to watch the Tarentum-Brackenridge Christmas Parade.

Her annual ritual to kick off the holidays has generated a deeper meaning since her father, Mark Vickers, died a few years back at 56.

“I came here every year with Dad to watch the parade before he passed away,” said Ganss, 47. “We watched our kids here. And, now, we watch our granddaughter.”

The little girl in question — Brynlei Brell, 3 — joined a crowd of hundreds that braved some gray, sluggish weather Saturday for the much-anticipated annual parade, which started on East Fifth Avenue in Tarentum and marched into neighboring Brackenridge.

There were so many units in the parade that it took 37 minutes for the parade to pass through Lock Street.

Marching bands pounded the pavement as they performed spirited Christmas staples, including more offbeat offerings like the theme from “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.” Many laminated their sheet music or tucked them into rain-proof, plastic sleeves they mounted to their instrument with a metal lyre, or music holder.

Many riding in colorful floats threw candy at those watching from the sidewalk. Discarded Tootsie Rolls and Twizzlers lined curbs and floated in rain puddles in the parade’s wake.

Veterans were represented Saturday. Four retired Marines from the Allegheny Valley Detachment 827 of the Marine Corps League walked in lockstep to help lead the parade, right behind an SUV that Allegheny County Sheriff Kevin M. Kraus was driving.

Local business owners and borough officials rode in the parade as well as more than a handful of community groups.

Multiple Shriners Hospital for Children vehicles, some staffed with fez-wearing men singing holiday tunes, filled the streets.

The Pittsburgh Parrot, the goofy, yellow-beaked mascot the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team, joked around with marching band musicians before the parade got underway.

Even the United Steelworkers turned out and marched with a float in the procession.

Rachel Becker showed up on Wood Street an hour before the parade’s 1 p.m. start to prep Girl Scout Troop 46906 as they readied to walk for the first time in the winter event.

The details, Becker said with a smile, were key.

The Scouts supplemented their uniforms, some of them filled with clusters of merit badges, by donning shiny green sleigh bells and bedazzled antlers to match.

“We got the antlers because we found 10 of them,” Becker, 49, of Natrona Heights said with a laugh. “I think we’re all just excited.”

Highlands High School Varsity Marching Band Director Matthew Beresik had details of a different kind on his mind.

He needed teens marching in his brass section — trumpets, trombones, tubas and mellophones, a kind of French horn — to keep playing their instruments. By continuously blowing hot air into them, he said, they were less likely to fall out of tune because of the low temperatures.

Keeping them dry in Saturday’s mist and drizzle felt like a fool’s errand — but one that Beresik knew well.

“It’s been decades — I remember marching like this when I was in the band here,” said Beresik, who played the trumpet while walking in the parade 30 years ago. “We’ve had icy streets. We’ve had valves on instruments frozen because it’s so cold. It comes with the territory.”

And, then, there were the iconic fire trucks with blaring emergency lights. They sported colors from the traditional “fire-engine red” to more unexpected shades, like powder blue.

Brittany McCullough fidgeted on Corbet Street as she waited to catch a glimpse of the firetruck with her kids in it.

The 8- and 10-year-old siblings were riding in “Pioneer Express,” a “Polar Express”-themed float created by Brackenridge’s Pioneer Hose Company.

McCullough stood proudly next to Ryan Gault, 32, of Brackenridge, who she is dating, and Gault’s goldendoodle, Harper. She admitted the weather was “not the best.”

But, she didn’t care.

This is how she kicks off the holidays each year.

“It’s a lot about family and community,” said McCullough, 31, of Brackenridge. “We like getting together to celebrate the holiday spirit.”