By Chris Barber
Contributing Writer

The folks in and around Kennett Square were clearly ready for a little Christmas fun in recent weeks.

They got it in the form of the 2025 Festival of Light parade last Saturday, Nov. 22.

Thousands of spectators crowded the streets from lower Broad to the west end of State Street. They cheered the procession as brightly decorated vehicles paraded through town – more than 100 of them -- during the better part of two hours.

Those who watched were stacked as many as five- or six-deep on the sidewalks.

Many spectators arrived an hour early or more, placing their deck chairs alongside for easy watching of the parade. They brought their children, bought souvenirs, waved to Santa and applauded the lighting of the town tree. It was not unusual to see children as young as toddlers -- and even infants --wrapped in blankets, perched on the sidewalks or in their parents’ arms. There was lots of picture-taking.

The audience was not just local, either. Many admitted to coming from outside the immediate Kennett Square area or could be heard discussing how they arrived from outside routes.

One visitor from Virginia said he and his wife arrived in southern Chester County for the weekend because the region has so much to see, including Longwood Gardens, Brandywine Museum of Art and Winterthur Museum.

The parade this year was sponsored and planned by Kennett Collaborative, the nonprofit that joins with many different community partners to promote and implement local programs and events.

For the 2025 parade, the organization sent out publicity advertising this parade as its longest ever and arriving a weekend earlier in November to engender a longer shopping season.

Kennett Collaborative even proclaimed the coming visitation by the Philadelphia Mummers’ Woodland String Band. Indeed, the string band did appear, strumming their banjoes and accompanying with their saxophones to “Jingle Bells.”

Meanwhile, the 100 or so vehicles that lumbered through town were swathed in multiple strings of colored lights.

Among the participants were trucks, cars, dancers, musicians and performers. Some of them showered their audiences with storms of artificial snowflakes.

Santa Claus representatives Fran and Andrea Durynski brought up the end of the parade to light the town tree in the rear of the 1918 Buick convertible driven by Lou Mandich and accompanied by this wife, Barbara.

Andrea said later she enjoyed the trip.

“We saw a lot of work that went into those floats. We got to see a lot of them because we brought up the rear,” she said.

This nighttime event has grown through the decades since the days when the late Mike and Carol Berzon rode into town in a carriage behind a pair of horses to perform the tree-lighting.

In recent years, the holiday parade has appeared to match the annual Memorial Day Parade in terms of popularity and attendance.

The local celebrations continue this coming Saturday, Nov. 29, when Santa Claus rides into town on the Santa Train with a collection set up for the Marines Toys for Tots. The Santa Train will be making stops at the towns throughout southern Chester County.