Children pet a dog in the Shepherdstown Christmas Parade on Saturday morning. Tabitha Johnston

SHEPHERDSTOWN — On Saturday morning, the Shepherdstown Christmas Parade marched from the intersection of South Church Street and German Street down to Princess Street.

While the parade had to be cancelled in 2020, due to concerns over it increasing the spread of the COVID-19 Pandemic, it has slowly but steadily returned to its pre-pandemic numbers. This year’s attendance and participation numbers were, for the first time, as high as they would have been, prior to the pandemic, according to Shepherdstown Rotary Club member and parade organizer Peter Smith.

“I don’t know if it’s the longest parade we’ve had, but it’s certainly one of the longest,” Smith said. “Last year, we had 73 parade entries and this year’s was 81! I did look back and found that in 2017 we had 80 entries — out of those, I don’t know how many showed up on the day-of.”

“I tried to research the history of Christmas in Shepherdstown and found it has been going on since the 1980s. As far as I can tell, Rotary has been involved with it, in one way or another, since the beginning,” Smith said, mentioning the Shepherdstown Rotary Club’s tradition of decorating McMurran Hall and the town Christmas tree has been annually maintained over the past four decades. “We took over the Shepherdstown Christmas Parade in 2013 from Cindy Cook, who had grown tired of organizing it, after doing so for many years.”

Along with a number of new parade entries, this year’s parade also featured one other new element, in the form of its emcee.

A float for the Eastern Panhandle Preparatory Academy glides down German Street on Saturday. Tabitha Johnston

“This is my first time doing this! Fifty years ago, I worked in radio — Peter heard me at a concert and asked me to do this,” said Steven Gainey, of Charles Town, noting he spent the rest of his career as a Certified Public Accountant. “The only downside of it for me was, there wasn’t much time to look at the entries, because I had to look down and read out their information.”

Gainey indicated enjoyed the experience, so much so that he would gladly emcee for the parade again.

“If you drew a picture on a Hallmark card of small-town America, this is what you would see — the Christmas parade, the whole nine yards,” Gainey said. “It was great fun!”

At the end of the parade, Mayor Jim Auxer expressed his appreciation for the Shepherdstown Rotary Club organizing the event, under the experienced eye of Smith and parade lineup organizer Holly Frye.

“There were a lot of people here — wow! It looked like everyone in Shepherdstown was either in or watching the parade,” Auxer said. “We could not do this parade without you. Thanks a lot!”

The Ram Band Color Guard walk down German Street in their holiday onesies on Saturday morning. Tabitha Johnston

Miss West Virginia Teen 2023 Allison Dodson, of Charles Town, waves to parade goers, as she is driven down German Street on Saturday morning. Tabitha Johnston

Santa Claus waves to parade goers, as he drives down German Street on Saturday morning. Tabitha Johnston