Lebanon Horse-drawn Carriage Parade

A wonderful festive day today - that is after I was done with cleaning carpets in the morning! Late morning we drove up to Lebanon Ohio to see the parade of horse-drawn carriages, which is part of their Christmas festival. Its a wonderful event, featuring over 100 entries, and includes horses of all shapes and sizes - from majestic Clydesdales to miniatures, Welsh cobs, Friesians and Percherons trotting through the streets of historic Lebanon, pulling Amish-style buggies, sleighs, trolleys, and ornately-decorated carriages. They do the parade twice - once at 1pm, and then again at 7pm, when many of the carriages are all lit-up. We had been once before, to the evening parade, but in many ways it was better in the daylight, so you could appreciate more the magnificent horses and all their harnesses etc. It was wonderful weather for it today - sunny and really quite warm for December. After the parade we got some food from one of the various food booths, and listened to some Christmas music from one of the high school choirs. Then this evening we went downtown Cincinnati to hear the San Francisco-based a Capella mens ensemble Chanticleer at St. Peter in Chains Cathedral, performing their Christmas concert. It was simply glorious, opening with them processing down the darkened cathedral by candlelight, and including a wonderful range of Christmas music, from Gregorian chant, through Spanish Renaissance, to Benjamin Britten, a Polish carol, French music, a medley of carols in southern Baptist style, and their special arrangements of traditional carols. I could have listened to them for hours!