The three of us planned on having a committee meeting every Wednesday until the middle of December when the event would take place. Our intentions were good, we even assigned each committee member a position (I was the secretary), but as the weeks moved ahead our enthusiasm waned. All hope wasn’t lost yet; we had spoken to about 12 couples who all owned boats and told us they would be involved. It really would have been a sight for the Corozal Bay if everyone had participated.
It became clear a couple weeks before Christmas that we would only have two boats appearing in the parade. No matter, we were still determined to make this happen and had planned on it up until the weekend the whole thing was to take place. Then the weather turned so we decided, with regret, that we would be canceling the boat parade.
Then we all decided it couldn’t just be forgotten so we decided to go for it with the two boats. Two days later, and two days before Christmas we were on the bay in boats surrounded by Christmas lights and having an absolutely awesome time. There were two boats with seven people total and we had our Christmas music blaring as we made a slow pass back and forth the town of Corozal. We weren’t sure anyone would see us from shore since our parade had sort of fizzled before it sparked back to life. There had been no announcement this would be taking place, but there were plenty of people along the water that night. So we had the Christmas carols blaring, waved and yelled, “Merry Christmas” and spun the boats in front of each crowd we passed.
In the end we provided some entertainment for the kids along the water that night and for ourselves. It is the start of a tradition for us as long as we’re in Corozal for Christmas and we may even add another boat next year.
