Portsmouth has a killer Halloween parade, but their holiday parade kinda sucks. It’s long and boring and cold. The Kittery Holiday Parade, on the other hand, is perfect. It’s short and sweet and sometimes the harbormaster rides in a boat on a trailer throwing out candy.

This year, June and her friend Sunny were voluntold to be the supervising gnomes in gnome-hat-making workshop at our friends’ shop. Here they are looking like a couple of waitresses closing a restaurant when a big group walks in at 8:57:

Despite the look, they actually had a lot of fun and did an excellent job helping out with the really little kids. And then they got to be in the parade!

I was too dense to figure out the gnome/holiday connection until I helped decorate our neighbors’ golf cart:

The parade ended at a nearby park where the town plugged in the big Christmas tree and gave everyone hot chocolate and cookies. Then we walked back to the Corner Pub for another friend’s birthday party.

The head gnomes were glad to have a break:

And the boys, who hadn’t contributed to the parade at all, played a rowdy round of pool: