Children's Christmas Parade
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The Children's Christmas Parade was a major
Christmas parade Santa Claus parades, also called Christmas parades, are parades held in some countries to celebrate the official opening of the Christmas season with the arrival of Santa Claus who always appears in the last float. The parades usually include them ...
held to benefit
Children's Healthcare of Atlanta Children's Healthcare of Atlanta (CHOA) is a not-for-profit children's healthcare system located in the Atlanta area. It is dedicated to caring for infants, children, teens, and young adults age 0–21 throughout Georgia. Children's formed in 1 ...
. The parade started in 1981 as the Egleston Christmas Parade. It became the Children's Christmas Parade, following the 1998 merger of
Egleston Children’s Hospital Children's Healthcare of Atlanta (Children's) Egleston Hospital is a former hospital facility in Atlanta. On Sept. 29, 2024, clinical services, including the Emergency Department, at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta (Children's) Egleston Hospital ...
and Scottish Rite Children's Hospital. The Children's Christmas Parade was held on the first Saturday in December. Nielsen estimates of TV viewing audience and crowd attendance together exceeded 500,000 in 2011. The parade featured floats, giant
helium Helium (from ) is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol He and atomic number 2. It is a colorless, odorless, non-toxic, inert gas, inert, monatomic gas and the first in the noble gas group in the periodic table. Its boiling point is ...
-filled
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s and
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s. It was the largest holiday parade in the
Southeast The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, Radius, radially arrayed compass directions (or Azimuth#In navigation, azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A ''compass rose'' is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, ...
. The Children's Christmas Parade aired live from 10:30 AM EST until
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on
WSB-TV WSB-TV (channel 2) is a television station in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, affiliated with ABC. It is the flagship television property of locally based Cox Media Group, which has owned the station since its inception, and is sister to rad ...
2.1 in
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, previously after a half-hour pre-show (until 2010) about the children at the hospital. It was
re-run A rerun or repeat is a rebroadcast of an episode of a radio or television Broadcast programming, program. The two types of reruns are those that occur during a Hiatus (television), hiatus and those that occur when a program is Broadcast syndicatio ...
again on
Christmas Day Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A liturgical feast central to Christianity, Chri ...
. Parade sponsors included
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,
Macy's Macy's is an American department store chain founded in 1858 by Rowland Hussey Macy. The first store was located in Manhattan on Sixth Avenue between 13th and 14th Streets, south of the present-day flagship store at Herald Square on West 34 ...
,
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,
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,
SunTrust SunTrust Banks, Inc. was an American bank holding company with SunTrust Bank as its largest subsidiary and assets of US$199 billion as of March 31, 2018. The bank's most direct corporate parent was established in 1891 in Atlanta, where it was h ...
, Fidelity Bank, Georgia's Own Credit Union, Aarons,
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, KidsRKids,
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, Atlanta Peach Movers, Foresters Insurance, and
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. In its earliest years, it was sponsored by
Davison's Davison's was an American department store chain founded in 1891 in Atlanta, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia, United States. It was a local institution, and competed with Rich's (department store), Rich's in the Atlanta market. Davison's expande ...
, one of the three major regional
department store A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store under one roof, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store mad ...
s based in Atlanta until they were eliminated by Macy's. The
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prompted organizers to cancel the parade in 2020. WSB-TV instead aired a special program, looking back at 40 years of Children's Christmas Parade memories. Children's Healthcare of Atlanta announced they would be ending the parade in 2021. A new event called, "Children's Season on the Square," will replace the parade and feature a Christmas tree lighting at
Colony Square Colony Square is a mixed-use development and sub-district in Midtown Atlanta, Georgia, located on Peachtree Street in between 14th and 15th Streets. The oldest high-rise development in Midtown, the sub-district was built between 1969 and 1975, ...
in
Midtown Atlanta Midtown Atlanta, or Midtown for short, is a Urban area, high-density commercial and residential neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. The exact geographical extent of the area is ill-defined due to differing definitions used ...
.


Parade route

For much of the parade's history, it began at
Peachtree Street Peachtree Street is one of several major streets running through the city of Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Beginning at Five Points (Atlanta), Five Points in downtown Atlanta, it runs North through Midtown Atlanta, Midtown; a few blocks afte ...
near Baker Street in
downtown Atlanta Downtown Atlanta is the central business district of Atlanta, Georgia, United States. The largest of the city's three commercial districts (Midtown Atlanta, Midtown and Buckhead being the others), it is the location of many corporate and region ...
. The route followed Atlanta's famed Peachtree Street southward before turning right onto Marietta Street at Five Points. The parade then turned left ending near the entrance to
Centennial Olympic Park Centennial Olympic Park is a public park located in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, owned and operated by the Georgia World Congress Center Authority. It was built by the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games (ACOG) as part of the infrastructur ...
. This route took it by the 1927 Davison's (later overtaken by
Macy's Macy's is an American department store chain founded in 1858 by Rowland Hussey Macy. The first store was located in Manhattan on Sixth Avenue between 13th and 14th Streets, south of the present-day flagship store at Herald Square on West 34 ...
) building at
200 Peachtree 200 Peachtree is a mixed-use retail center in downtown Atlanta, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia designed by Philip T. Shutze and Starrett & van Vleck. Built in 1927 as the flagship department store for Davison's, the last department store in the ...
. In 2013, organizers announced the Children's Christmas Parade would be moving from downtown to Midtown to make way for construction of the new
Atlanta Streetcar The Atlanta Streetcar (also known as the Downtown Loop) is a streetcar line in Atlanta, Georgia. Testing on the line began in summer 2014 with passenger service beginning as scheduled on December 30, 2014. In , the line had rides, or about p ...
. The new parade route (''shown left'') started at Peachtree Street and 16th Street, in front of the
High Museum of Art The High Museum of Art (colloquially the High) is the largest museum for visual art in the Southeastern United States. Located in Atlanta, Georgia (on Peachtree Street in Midtown, the city's arts district), the High is 312,000 square feet (28, ...
, and continued for , before ending at Peachtree Street and 5th Street.


Festival of Trees

The parade also served as the opening event for the nine-day Festival of Trees, also benefiting CHoA, and originally held at the
Georgia World Congress Center The Georgia World Congress Center (GWCC) is a convention center in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Enclosing some 3.9 million ft2 (360,000 m2) in exhibition space and hosting more than a million visitors each year, the GWCC is the world's largest LEED c ...
. Even though the Festival of Trees left its longtime home in 2007, the Children's Christmas Parade remained in downtown Atlanta continuing a nearly three-decade Atlanta tradition. The festival, which started in 1979, was canceled in 2009, after having been drastically reduced in previous years. In 2008, the "festival" was a
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hosted by the
Savannah College of Art and Design Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) is a private art school with locations in Savannah, Georgia; Atlanta, Georgia; and Lacoste, France. It was founded in 1978 to provide degrees in programs not yet offered in the southeast of the United ...
satellite
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in Atlanta.


References


External links


Official Children's Christmas Parade site

Children's Healthcare of Atlanta
{{coord, 33, 47, 26.3, N, 84, 23, 6.5, W, type:event_region:US-GA, display=title Christmas and holiday season parades Recurring events established in 1981 Tourist attractions in Atlanta
Christmas Parade Santa Claus parades, also called Christmas parades, are parades held in some countries to celebrate the official opening of the Christmas season with the arrival of Santa Claus who always appears in the last float. The parades usually include them ...