Float Decorating

My son and I spent Tuesday helping out on the Boy Scout float. We were at the Rosemont Pavilion, which is a huge warehouse across the street from the Rose Bowl where Phoenix Decorating Company is building many of its floats. During the day, we cut flowers (including the carnations pictured above), pinned "Christmas Green," moved around buckets of flowers, and stuck vials of roses onto the float.

Float building is a rather amazing mix of highly professional artistry with hordes of volunteer helpers. The Phoenix site says it takes 20,000 hours to decorate an average float and 16,000 people volunteer (I think just for the 19 Phoenix floats). Our float had a Phoenix manager who had a book detailing the sequencing of how, where and importantly when the flowers are applied. He kept us all moving in one direction or another and kept boys off of the scaffolding.

Despite all the work being done, there is a wonderfully festive atmosphere at the Rosemont Pavilion. There are maybe ten floats being built there in the giant warehouse and each effort has its own band of volunteers. Many hundreds are jammed into the warehouse -- people from many different groups and cities. Camera crews are wandering around shooting the float construction. And tours are going on constantly with folks from all over being led through the Pavilion to watch the floats being built.

This is the flower tent that serves the Pavilion. Like a giant florist shop. Smells great in there!

Yeah, I know this is outside my East of Allen jurisdiction. But, sometime Friday morning all these flowers will actually be East of Allen. Stuck and glued onto floats, they'll move down Colorado Blvd. and cross Allen Avenue. From Colorado, the floats will roll onto Sierra Madre Blvd., which is a short walk from our house and where we'll see the parade.