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By Nancy Wilson, Contributing Writer 12:53 PM Saturday, December 10, 2011

Christmas celebrations are in full force across the Miami Valley, and my little hometown of South Charleston is no exception.

When I was growing up, the town tree was next to the library in the center of town. It was ginormous, with the old fashioned  multicolored bulbs.

When the library underwent renovations several years ago, the tree had to go. A little bitty Charlie Brown tree took its place, but it just wasn’t the same.

But on Thanksgiving weekend, a group of us stood in the pouring rain in a vacant lot across the street from the library, to witness the official lighting of the new, bigger Christmas tree, complete with big bulbs and decorations made by Miami View school kids.

This past Wednesday, I was the grand marshal in the Christmas parade, proudly sitting in the bed of a red pickup truck, with the Southeastern High School marching band playing the fight song behind me.

Granted, it took all of 20 minutes to get from the city limits, through three traffic lights, to end up at the grain elevators on the other end of town, but I couldn’t have been more excited than if I was in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade!

I always thought it would be cool to pull around one of those huge balloons, you know? Pink Panther, yes. Spider-man, not so much. And of course, riding on the float with Santa Claus would be the ultimate. I always feel bad for the celebrities who “sing” on their floats.

In this year’s Macy’s parade, “American Idol” winner Scotty McCreery was outfitted on a ride to perform his hit “The Trouble With Girls.” Unfortunately, his cue didn’t go quite right, and the song began a few seconds before he began to “sing.”

Oops, he did it again. It’s no surprise most of the artists in these parades are lip syncing. I guess they figure it sounds better that way, as opposed to someone trying to finagle a moving truck bed and sing their song at the same time.

But if all you have to do is mouth the words, the least you can do is get it right. You can bet when the Kenton Ridge Cougars are marching in Macy’s parade next year, they won’t be lip syncing their songs.

And I guarantee, during this week’s South Charleston Christmas parade, as I waved to the crowd in my red pickup sleigh, with the new Christmas tree glowing brightly along the route, I was proudly singing “On Southeastern” out loud along with the band.

Contact Nancy Wilson, a morning-radio personality at WHKO-FM (K99.1), by email through k99online.com.

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