Harrison preps tree, plaza for Christmas parade and festival

Organizers of Harrison’s Christmas parade and festival plan to hold the festival under a tent this year to avoid a repeat of last year, when Mother Nature was a Grinch and rained out the festivities.

Rain or shine, the parade will begin at 4 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 7, and is expected to last about an hour. It will start at Alabama Avenue and Broadview Boulevard, turn right onto Liberty Avenue at the Eat’n Park restaurant and left onto Union Avenue next to the rear of Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament Church before ending at the Heights Plaza shopping center parking lot.

The festival will be held under a tent in the plaza lot.

The parade will include 45 units and be led by the U.S. Marine Corps and the Natrona Heights Veterans of Foreign Wars, said Todd Stanzione, who is in charge of the parade.

Other participants will include the Highlands High School Marching Band, a drum corps, Alle-Kiski Valley fire departments, the Kennywood trolley, antique tractors, Masons and Shriners, and the American Red Cross and Salvation Army.

The festival will start immediately after the parade. It will feature live performances, food trucks, cookies, cocoa, crafts for kids and Santa Claus.

The plaza is decorated with lighted Christmas wreaths that had not been used in more than 15 years, township Commissioner Chuck Dizard said. They are on timers set to illuminate between 4 p.m. and midnight.

The wreaths were brought out of storage at the former Riverview school in July, when they were cleaned and fixed up.

“People are doing cartwheels to see them back,” Dizard said.

This year’s tree came from the grounds of General Press, which donated it. It was among four or five that were considered.

“It’s so close to the corner of the building they were pleased to share,” Dizard said. “This one is dense. It’s the fullest tree of the ones we saw.”

Crews with Beaverjack Tree Service cut the 40-foot Norway spruce down Friday morning. It was taken on a flatbed to the grounds at Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament at Broadview Boulevard and Montana Avenue.

Last year, members of the Petracco family donated a roughly 45-foot-tall blue spruce from the backyard of their home on the Brackenridge side of Mile Lock Lane in memory of their departed relatives.

Although last year’s parade and festival were canceled because of rain, the tree was still lit.