Family, food, and friends are the everyday things you expect to see on your average Thanksgiving weekend. Here in New Ulm, it’s just one of the things that they do a little differently.

On the Friday after Thanksgiving, the next page of the year gets turned, and the holiday spirit begins. New Ulm’s 36th annual Parade of Lights is such a thing.

The Parade takes place in spruced-up downtown New Ulm. As reported in the New Ulm Journal, 63 live Christmas trees were placed in corner planters along Minnesota Street by New Ulm Education Association members on Sunday morning.

The Parade occurs in New Ulm’s historic downtown from 4th South to 4th North Minnesota Street. It starts at 6 pm and has never been canceled due to weather in its 36 years, so bring your coats, mittens, and hot chocolate.

“We’ve been in the parade as long as I have been teaching here; I don’t remember a time that we haven’t been a part of the parade,” New Ulm FFA student Advisor Jeff Nelson said. “This year gonna be cold, around 10 degrees without the windchill, so we’re ready to endure the cold.”

As a part of the annual float-building process, FFA members get their artistic minds flowing to decorate the float with lights, hay bales, trees, and other festive decorations. Nelson said, “This year, Adam Mages and his family farm are letting us use their Semi and flatbed trailer, so there should be plenty of room for the 100 FFA members if they all show up.”

“There’s been trucks pulling gooseneck trailers, tractors and hayracks, and this year a semi and flatbed,” Nelson said.

The Parade, he said, “is a good way for New Ulm to look at the FFA members they support through the fruit sale and other events since the general public doesn’t get to see what New Ulm’s FFA looks like.

As the last float goes by, Santa greets all the children with cheers and ho ho ho as the Parade raps up and the annual lighting of the giant Christmas tree on the front lawn of New Ulm’s city hall.