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CHAPEL HILL -- Six-year-old Isaac Johnson sat bundled up in coats, scarves and blankets Saturday and let Christmas come to him.
A little freckled elf from Frank Porter Graham Elementary School trotted up and threw a handful of candy toward Isaac, who watched as the adults around him picked them up and placed them in his lap.
It was a good day for Isaac, who watched in warmth as the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Holiday Parade passed by. Child after child, some on skateboards or scooters, some with dogs, threw candy and gum to him until his lap was overflowing.
"It's better than Halloween," said his mother Kelly Johnson. "They bring it to you."
The parade, led by the Chapel Hill High School Marching Band, started at the Morehead Planetarium, continued down Franklin Street and ended in Carrboro. It had all the usual trappings of a Chapel Hill-Carrboro style parade -- the Carolina blue fire truck blaring its siren; troops and troops of Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts and Girl Scouts; bands and singers on floats; a shiny green and orange solid waste truck; the Heelraiser hearse blaring Christmas music as its owner John Snipes bee-bopped in the driver's seat; parents pulling their children in wagons; a dog drill team; a solar-powered pickup truck; taekwondo guys kicking and breaking boards held high over their heads; and a hybrid truncated bus that weaved its way down the street like a snake.
"I saw a lot of people I knew in the band," said John Walden, a 12-year-old who attends McDougle Middle School.
Emmett Mongello, 10, rode on the Chapel Hill Parks & Recreation float as a member of the mighty, mighty Titans, a football team for 9- and 10-year-olds.
"I've never done that before," he said. "It was lots of fun."
The parade also included a few non-traditional holiday floats and characters: a nativity scene with an astronaut apparently playing the part of a wise man; a truck pulling a boat containing a man dressed in a sleeveless red dress as a girl on roller skates held a rope that pulled her along behind the boat; a wedding party; a Latin club, whose members wore sheets draped around their shoulders; a tree; and a man-eating plant.
And let's not forget Santa and Miss North Carolina riding a float sponsored by a pawn shop. On Comet, On Cupid, On Donner and Blitzen!
"I liked the Boy Scouts. I liked the karate ones and sports ones," Isaac said. "I liked the skateboards."
His parents loved everything about the parade, the second one they've seen in Chapel Hill.
"I like the friendliness of it," said Isaac's father, Mark Johnson. "It's perfect for a 6-year-old. It's not too long."
"I think it's too long for me," Isaac countered. "No, I'm serious."
