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) sometimes simply referred to as ''Children's'', is a not-for-profit children's healthcare system, located in the Atlanta area dedicated to caring for infants, children, teens, and young adults aged 0–2 ...

. 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 and Scottish Rite Children's Hospital. The Children's Christmas Parade was held on the first Saturday in December.

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estimates of TV viewing audience and crowd attendance together exceeded 500,000 in 2011. The parade featured

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s, giant

helium Helium (from el, ἥλιος, helios, lit=sun) is a chemical element with the symbol He and atomic number 2. It is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, inert, monatomic gas and the first in the noble gas group in the periodic table. ...

-filled

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s and

marching band A marching band is a group of instrumental musicians who perform while marching, often for entertainment or competition. Instrumentation typically includes brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. Most marching bands wear a uniform, ...

s. It was the largest holiday parade in the

Southeast The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sepa ...

. The Children's Christmas Parade aired live from 10:30 AM EST until

noon Noon (or midday) is 12 o'clock in the daytime. It is written as 12 noon, 12:00 m. (for meridiem, literally 12:00 noon), 12 p.m. (for post meridiem, literally "after noon"), 12 pm, or 12:00 (using a 24-hour clock) or 1200 ( military time). Sol ...

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 ...

2.1 in

HDTV High-definition television (HD or HDTV) describes a television system which provides a substantially higher image resolution than the previous generation of technologies. The term has been used since 1936; in more recent times, it refers to the ...

, 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 program. There are two types of reruns – those that occur during a hiatus, and those that occur when a program is syndicated. Variations In the United Kingdom, the wor ...

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 feast central to the Christian liturgical year ...

. Parade sponsors included

Wells Fargo Wells Fargo & Company is an American multinational financial services company with corporate headquarters in San Francisco, California; operational headquarters in Manhattan; and managerial offices throughout the United States and inter ...

Macy's Macy's (originally R. H. Macy & Co.) is an American chain of high-end department stores founded in 1858 by Rowland Hussey Macy. It became a division of the Cincinnati-based Federated Department Stores in 1994, through which it is affiliated wi ...

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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,

Publix Publix Super Markets, Inc., commonly known as Publix, is an employee ownership, employee-owned American supermarket chain headquartered in Lakeland, Florida. Founded in 1930 by George W. Jenkins, Publix is a Privately held company, private corp ...

, KidsRKids, Ringling Bros, Atlanta Peach Movers, Foresters Insurance, and

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. In its earliest years, it was sponsored by

Davison's Davison's of Atlanta was a department store chain and an Atlanta shopping institution. It was the major competition to Rich's and it took the Macy's name in 1986. Founding Davison's first opened its doors in Atlanta in 1891 and had its orig ...

, 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, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store made a dramatic app ...

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, ...

Midtown Atlanta Midtown Atlanta, or Midtown, is a high-density commercial and residential neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia. The exact geographical extent of the area is ill-defined due to differing definitions used by the city, residents, and local business ...

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. Beginning at Five Points in downtown Atlanta, it runs North through Midtown; a few blocks after entering into Buckhead, the name changes to Peachtree Road ...

near Baker Street in

downtown Atlanta Downtown Atlanta is the central business district of Atlanta, Georgia, United States. The larger of the city's two other commercial districts ( Midtown and Buckhead), it is the location of many corporate and regional headquarters; city, county, ...

. 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 infrastruc ...

. This route took it by the 1927 Davison's (later overtaken by

) building at

200 Peachtree 200 Peachtree is a mixed-use retail center in downtown Atlanta, 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 building closed in 20 ...

. 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 Atlanta Streetcar or Downtown Loop is a streetcar line in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. 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 per wee ...

. 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 (2 ...

, 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. 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 cer ...

. 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 nonprofit art school with locations in Savannah, Georgia; Atlanta, Georgia; and Lacoste, France. Founded in 1978 to provide degrees in programs not yet offered in the southeast of the Un ...

satellite campus in Atlanta.

References

External links

Official Children's Christmas Parade site

Children's Healthcare of Atlanta
{{coord missing, Atlanta 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 ...