Parade of lights

PALMER — Palmer was filled to the brim Saturday evening for the annual Colony Christmas weekend celebration. Hundreds of people filled up every available parking space and lined up on both sides of Alaska Street to watch the parade. Following the new “Running of the Beers” 5k run and leading up to the parade, a Colony Christmas milestone was cleared. For the first time in Palmer’s history, the iconic water tower was lit up with Christmas lights. Even the newly restored finial was beaming bright red, twinkling into the night. Several floats, emergency vehicles, people, and even holiday-themed bikers made their way through the parade, waving and shouting Merry Christmas. The evening went out with a bang as a flurry of fireworks lit up the town for about 15 minutes. This was met with much enthusiasm. This year’s Colony Christmas crowd was one of the largest to date. For many people, the parade is the highlight of the Colony Christmas weekend and is often seen as a way for the whole community to come together.

“I liked it. It was better than last year. It was livelier,” said Curtis Koski.

Koski grew up in the Valley, so he’s been to his fair share of Colony Christmas parades. He’s grown accustomed to the yearly tradition. To him, the only downside was the parking situation. He said that people shouldn’t park on Alaska Street, saying the cars got in the way for the parade and spectators. This year, the vacant Fred Meyer parking lot was packed full of cars. It appears that people from Palmer and beyond have the parade embedded in their mental calendars. The tradition shows no sign of slowing down.

“We’re always gonna’ do this,” said Sabrena Combs, Palmer city events manager.

Cori and Richard Jones go to the parade every year. They were wearing specially made hats with the water tower decked out with Christmas lights. The hats were highly detailed and flickered brightly as they made their way through the crowd to find another spot to spectate. The couple seemed jovial with holiday spirit.

“How can we not with the lighting of the water tower?” Cori said.

“They outdid us though. They lit the finial,” Richard said.

The water tower is actually privately owned and is on private property. Alaska Pickers owner Kelly Turney called up the owner and asked for permission to deck out the water tower. After getting approval, Turney said that he worked with Bleeding Heart Brewery owners Zack Lanphier and Stefan Marty to sponsor the lighting. According to Turney, the timing was ideal. Palmer just got a new fire truck with a lengthy ladder. After the 1980s restoration, the water tower’s own ladder was cut off, to prevent misconduct, particularly mishaps of the inebriated. Turney and Lanphier climbed up the fire truck’s ladder and spent more than two hours hanging up lights atop the tower. For several nights leading up to the ceremonial lighting, they tested the equipment.

“The last thing we wanted was to plug it in and have it not work and have a Clark Griswold moment,” Turney laughed.

Turney’s daughter, Paige Fry, was the one who plugged in the lights on Colony Christmas. Turney said that the timing for the ceremony was a good transition from the 5k run to the parade. He said that more than 400 people were involved with the run and he got a lot of positive feedback. Alaska Pickers, Bleeding Heart and Active Soles sponsored the run and plan to do it again next year. Turney said he was thankful to give back to the community while adding two new experiences to a long standing Palmer tradition.

“We just wanted to do something cool for Palmer; that’s what it was all about,” Turney said.

Sabrena Combs and Gordon Fletcher emceed the parade. Combs runs all the parades in Fletcher owns Humdinger’s Pizza, and he and Combs both said the parade was “short and sweet” and that the weather was ideal. This is Combs’ sixth year coordinating the parades. She said that the both the Colony Days and Colony Christmas parades are ran entirely by volunteers, which she said was “amazing.”

“I think it’s the nostalgia that keeps bringing people back,” said Fletcher, the parade’s emcee.

Combs has two young children. She plans to raise them in Palmer, the place she feels deeply attached to. She felt that having annual events like Colony Christmas bring the town together and remind everyone to take care of their own community.

“I have two little boys. I want it to be as awesome for them as it was for me growing up here,” Combs said.

During the firework show, people cheered, whistled, gasped and clapped in unison. After the big finale, they streets of palmer, filled with people all applauded at once. The fireworks were shot from the Palmer Library parking lot. Some people were parked nearby and personally thanked the pyrotechnic crew of three, saying, “good job” and “that was awesome!” as they walked by.

“That’s better than any paycheck,” said Fire Art Pyrotechnics owner Matt Brown. “It’s like for 15 minutes, everyone is the same. There’s no fighting. They just look up at the concert in the sky.”