Another Successful Year for the Christmas Light Parade

The 2019 Rio Linda Elverta Christmas Light Parade took place Saturday night and wow! What an amazing event this has become.

Families and friends gathered to see the parade floats, custom cars, marching bands and beauty queens make their way down M Street, all of them lit with twinkling, sparkling Christmas lights. A few even had bubbles imitating snow filling the air.

“What a fun and amazing parade! We are very thankful to have such a awesome parade in our home town and it has now become a family tradition to be a part of. Thank you Tabitha Worth for bringing this to life in our home town. You and your team of volunteers have truly made something special. My family and the town of Rio Linda are beyond thankful for this event.”
Parade participant and Sponsor Justin Bryant

Over 70 organizations entered this year’s parade representing communities from Rio Linda, Elverta, Citrus Heights and Granite Bay. Sacramento County Supervisor Sue Frost led the parade in Rio Linda’s very first fire truck, Old Betsy. There were three marching bands this year, including the Rio Linda High School Marching Band, the Citrus Heights Community Marching Band and new this year were the Big Beat Drum Corp from Ridgeview Elementary in Granite Bay.

Some confusion and unexpected excitement started the parade off when the three engines from Sac Metro Fire had to step out of line and rush down M Street to a structure fire on Q Street before they even made it to the archway. Later, Engine 112 ducked back in towards the tail end, but it made for some tense and concerning moments to kick things off.

Some of the more popular entries were the 6 foot tall, 60 inch wheeled tricycle, driven/ridden by Regina Griffith and her family. Another was the Elbert family’s SUMO the rock crawling race car, with a big block race motor, 50 inch tires, and rear steer that always excites the crowd.

Unfortunately, after the parade had completed, there was an accident in front of Archway Market on M Street. Barricades were removed prematurely by someone not connected to the parade or involved with traffic control, which allowed vehicles to come through on M Street while cleanup was taking place. Frank Lopez of Marshal Property Maintenance had volunteered to help clean up the parade route as they had during the Country Faire earlier this year. Sadly, he was struck by an elderly man driving a PT Cruiser, and suffered a broken shoulder and sustained ligament and tendon damage to his legs.

Despite that unfortunate incident, the parade was wildly sucessful as it has been for the last three years, and continues to grow. As always the committee will meet again after the holidays for a post-mortem to make tweaks and adjustments to make things run more smoothly and consider all those little things that pop up unexpectedly.

Huge thanks should be extended to parade organizer Tabitha Worth and her husband Shawn. This parade would not happen if it were not for her yanking it across the line each and every year.

The organizing committee would like to thank the sponsors, without whom this parade could never take place:

The winners of our home and business decoration contest were The Treasured Penny (2nd year for them) and The DeGuzman family at 6747 West 2nd Street, at the corner of West 2nd and M.

Our parade winners were: