It is Car Parade Day today for the Fourth of July. Chicago's Daily Herald has a listing of where to find car parades. The article says that this year's trend is house-decorating contests and routes replacing traditional July 4th parades.
I think that a mid-summer festival of lanterns would be successful in both the U.S. and Canada for our national celebration days given they are mid-summer. I've promoting this with Rotarians, but they seemed to want the summer off last year. I also like the idea of Christmas in July. There would be upside-down trees with summer themes and deciduous tree structures that are decorated with summer themes.
Back to the traditional national celebrations in the U.S.: There still are fireworks around the country but generally the sites are not accessible to the public. Or the displays can be seen from cars in the parking lots.
That's completely different in Washington D.C. . The fireworks display is scheduled for Washington DC between 9:07 and 9:44 with 300,000 cloth face coverings available and ready to be distributed to visitors. Can you imagine 300,000 people together now? The official estimate is crowds of over 7,000 are expected.
There are many national celebrations coming up - what will France do on July 14th? They have cancelled the traditional military parade. They will still have 2,000 participants and 2,400 guests at a military ceremony. It won't be open to the public. There is also a claim that the French Open Tennis will be played with people in the stands in September That's 20,000 people.
