LYNN — Two of the area’s premier Christmas celebrations have been canceled for this year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The parades in Lynn and Nahant have been called off, according to organizers Jay Walsh of Lynn and Roz Puleo of Nahant. This is the first time in the 35-year history of Lynn’s Christmas Eve parade that it has been canceled.
However, the Nahant officials are still exploring ways they can still host a town-wide celebration and keep people safe at the same time.
Walsh, who is Ward 7 Councilor for Lynn, is the head organizer and has been part of the parade since it was begun by his father and a family friend, Rich Viger.
“It’s just a bummer,” he said. “It’s breaking my heart, but it is what it is. We think it’s in the best interest of our city and the people we like to do it for. We want to keep people safe.”
Not only has Walsh been the event’s head organizer for the past nine years, he has never missed a parade.
Walsh said his father and Viger got the idea of a parade when he was 5 years old, and the two took him on a Christmas Eve hunt to investigate police scanner reports of Santa Claus riding a cruiser in Saugus.
Seeing the joy that the late-night holiday ride brought Walsh, Viger convinced Walsh’s father to help him organize a similar event for Lynn families the following year.
Thirty-five years later, the parade has grown into a massive 75-float spectacle that draws nearly 80,000 onlookers along the procession’s 26-mile route every Christmas Eve.
“Since I was 5, this is what I’ve done every night on Christmas Eve,” said Walsh, who also works as a plumber for his father’s company, John’s Oil.
“It was never canceled. We’ve gone in every single rain, snow, warm weather when we had air conditioning on in our trucks and freezing, frigid cold weather. We’ve never missed a year. This year we really can’t prepare for that and ensure anybody’s safety.”
With COVID-19 cases surging in Lynn, along with the city’s density and the crowds that flock to the event each year, Walsh said he and other parade organizers “knew deep down inside that it wasn’t going to be possible” this year.
But despite the parade’s cancellation, Walsh said residents should be on the lookout for a little bit of Christmas magic that night.
“At some point that night there still may be a sighting of Santa and his reindeer,” said Walsh.
This will also be the first time in more than two decades there will be no Christmas parade in Nahant. Scheduled for Dec. 19, officials instead have turned their focus to keeping residents safe during the pandemic.
“It was really with a lot of regret (that we had to cancel), let’s put it that way,” said Puleo, a retired Nahant Police dispatcher. “I was really back and forth over whether I should or I shouldn’t, but I figured with the way things are going, we’d have to call it off.”
The highly-anticipated event typically draws a crowd of several hundred spectators, who line the streets all the way down to the Nahant rotary in order to catch a glimpse of dozens of floats decked-out in a hectic assortment of lights, blow-up figures, and garlands.
However, following the state’s designation of Nahant as a COVID-19 hotspot late last month, town officials agree that extra caution is necessary.
“Any annual event that gets brought forward in the community, we try to find a way to make it happen. Sometimes it takes more work and a little more effort (in order to keep an event safe), but especially going into the holiday season, we try hard to make things happen and not just simply say ‘no,’” said Town Administrator Antonio Barletta. “That being said … the organizers just felt it was best to hold off this year instead of trying to organize a parade that would have so many limitations.”
Barletta said not wanting to give residents a reason to congregate played a large role in organizers’ decision to cancel the popular event entirely.
“The parade itself isn’t all that difficult, it’s more so that the night of the parade tends to be a Christmas party night,” he said. “People try to get together and watch the parade.”
He added that Gov. Charlie Baker’s most recent orders, which were announced last week and cautioned Massachusetts residents against congregating indoors, seemed to clearly target late-night, private events.
All may not be lost, however.
“We felt like we could still celebrate the holiday with other events,” Barletta said. “We’re still brainstorming alternative options.”
Although Puleo has already collected the lights the town planned to use in the parade, she still hopes to put them to use by decorating the tree at Nahant Town Hall, the Coast Guard station, and the gazebo at Bailey’s Hill Park.
“We’re going to light up the town,” she said. “We will bring the holiday spirit to Nahant, at least in some ways.”
On the night the parade was originally planned to take place, Puleo said the town will instead offer a showing of previous years’ parades on cable.
She added that she also hopes to continue raising scholarship money for the town’s graduating seniors — an event typically held in conjunction with the parade.
Those who wish to donate to the scholarship fund can bring a check made out to the Town of Nahant — Nahant Santa Parade to Coastal Heritage Bank.
“I hate to give that up,” Puleo said. “If we can afford it, we’ll give a scholarship to everyone.”
