With only a few weeks away till Christmas, the City of Newburgh is filled with holiday cheer and joy as they kick off the season with the annual Holiday Parade. The annual parade took off at noon Saturday, Dec. 4.

“We’re looking forward to this, we’ve been decorating the float for a couple weeks now,” Ed Howard said in his elf on the shelf costume for this year’s parade. “Looking forward to seeing all the kids and the adults and everybody enjoying the holiday season. I would just like to wish everybody a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.”

Prior to the date, the city announced to the public that route maps would be available online as well as links to the parade that would be livestreamed on Facebook and various social media in case they were not able to attend. On the day of the parade as the sun was peeking through the clouds, members of the police department, fire department, water department and public works gathered on Pierces Road to begin the final preparations for the parade.
Daniel Dimitrov, Chad Wade and Chari Alberti, who all work for the water department, said they were happy to be part of the decorating and preparation of the float prior to the parade. Each of them dressed in Christmas costumes in preparation for the parade.

“It brings good holiday cheer to the City of Newburgh. We need that,” Alberti said.

With the on-going pandemic, Dimitrov hopes to bring joy and happiness to all those this year with the parade. For this year’s parade, he dressed up as the Grinch and from a chimney set piece, he tossed coal colored candy to the kids as the float passed by. “I wish happiness and a good year for everybody,” Dimitrov said.

As noon began to roll around, the parade made its final preparations and took off all across the city sending holiday cheer to all.

The day before the parade, the city announced to the public that it has finally received its annual Christmas tree. This year’s tree is a 30 foot plus two thousand pound Blue Spruce. The city thanks the Alvarez family of the Town of New Windsor who donated the tree. The annual Tree Lighting will take place at the corner of Broadway and Liberty Street at 5 p.m. on Friday, December 10.