Holiday Lights Parade Coming To Richfield

RICHFIELD, MN — It may not even be Thanksgiving yet, but like a lot of the country, Richfield is already thinking about the winter holidays.

The city announced on its website that its Holiday Lights Parade will return for a second year on Thursday, Dec. 16. After a resounding success last December, the city’s Parks and Recreation Department is organizing a 45-minute parade on a condensed route, the city reports.

The parade will start at 6:30 p.m. at the Public Works Building on 66th Street and travel west, before turning south onto Bloomington Avenue. A caravan consisting of Santa and Mrs. Clause, festively-lit emergency vehicles, and traditional parade floats will then turn west onto 70th Street until Lyndale Avenue, then continue north onto Lyndale Avenue until it finishes at 67th Street at 7:15 p.m. Click on the link above for a map of the route.

“For this year, we condensed the parade route a little bit, while still utilizing parks and school, so residents can have places to park and watch the parade,”said Fire Chief and parade committee member Mike Dobesh in a city news release.

The parade celebrated its inaugural route in 2020, after successful birthday patrols organized by the city’s fire, police, and public works departments to cheer residents up during the early months of the pandemic. After thousands of people attended, the city decided to give it another shot and even add a few more vehicles.

“When you plan a new city-wide event, like the Holiday Lights Parade, you never know how well it will be embraced by the community,” said parade committee member and Public Works Operations Superintendent Chris Link. “We are so happy that the community has embraced this new event and we intend to make the second parade even better than the first, with even more residents in attendance.”