Written by Angelina Prum and Quyen Le
As the holidays start to creep up, the City of Malden hosts the 14th annual Holiday Parade. The parade launched off at Salemwood on Waite Street Extension, then marched up onto Maple Street, and made a left turn onto Salem Street. The parade finished off at the Malden Teen Enrichment Center, located next to the Malden High School.
On Saturday, November 25, 2017 families and friends came together to celebrate the upcoming holidays with all the other residences of Malden. Residents of Malden dressed up for the event, a Santa Claus could be seen roaming around the parade, Malden’s Fire Department’s own Sparky the dog was seen with the firefighters and policemen. Malden High’s mascot, Nedlam, was also present giving viewers highfives and bringing joy to all the children.
All the floats that participated in the parade played their own songs. On one of the floats blasted the classic Christmas jingle “All I Want for Christmas” by Mariah Carey throughout the parade. The bands of the Malden Public schools also played their own songs. Salemwood’s middle school band played theme from the series “The Pacific”, and the hit song “Believer” by Imagine Dragons. The Salemwood band was led by Matthew Tavares, Salemwood’s band director. Before the parade, he expressed how excited he was for the parade, “[He] [loves] doing what [does] and [he] [has] a lot of fun doing it” he said. He later on explained, at events like this, “you will never know what will happen next, so you will need to be able to think on your feet when a new challenge [arises]”, which is something he enjoys. Tavares believes the biggest challenge is not teaching the students how to learn their instruments, in fact it is actually the easiest part. The biggest challenge as a band director is making sure the band cooperates with each other to sound good as a unit. Tavares expected a good day out of the band and he believes that people can feel a good performance. He stated “you can tell people a lot of things, but what really convinces them is the performance”. Donald Ford, one of the lead pianist for Salemwood Band, is excited to be a part of the parade, fiercely stated “confidence means power”. Malden High School’s band played “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”. Band members stated that their experience was “tiring but well-deserved.” The Malden High band members practiced hard for two months.
The parade had various of floats and programs marching. A program the library was hosting was the Malden Reads. During the parade the Malden Reads instructors gave away free books to children. This organization is run by the Malden Public Library and encourages kids to open up a book and read! The organization of Malden Reads quotes on their banner “one city, one book”. Local business also banded together in the parade to perform. Such as the Wah Lum Kung Fu & Tai Chi Academy. They performed their annual Dragon Dance. Dancing studios from Malden also came to perform their choreography at the parade.
Throughout the parade you could find floats from the Malden Public schools. All of the floats had their own school quotes on them. Beebe’s school quote was “Building the future child by child” and their float was designed with a huge banner, with students from the Beebe school sitting on top of the float. Forestdale’s school quote was “The Forestdale School future leaders”. Their float was designed with a nest filled with eggs and their mascot on top.
The audience of the parade was very satisfied and happy with the turnout of the parade. Families, friends, teachers, and students were present and were amused to watch this event, they definitely enjoyed the different and unique floats, the music and the performances. Brendon Santos is a student at Malden High School, who watched and followed the parade from the beginning to end. “[He] [thought] the parade was very cool and amusing”. Santos is a drummer himself, and he stated “Watching the band perform made [him] want to be a part of the parade as well”.
