The Sunnyside Rotary Club invites Pacific Northwest residents to attend the 36th annual Lighted Farm Implement Parade at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 7, in downtown Sunnyside.
Sunnyside is proud of its location in the heartland of the Northwest’s most diversified agricultural region, and this enchanting festival of lights is a beautiful celebration of the Yakima Valley’s agricultural heritage. As the oldest farm implement parade in the nation, it includes dozens of tractors, combines and other farm vehicles, each uniquely decorated with thousands of twinkling lights.
The parade has received attention in national news outlets and has been replicated around the country. But there’s no other lighted parade in the region on the scale of the Lighted Farm Implement Parade in Sunnyside. It has been featured on the Travel Channel and Xtreme Christmas, and was voted one of the top 10 lighted parades in the nation by A&E TV.
But you have to see it in person to fully appreciate how the event captures the spirit of a rural Christmas. With all the decorations, you may not recognize the tractors, combines, harrow beds, swathers, grape pickers, semi-trucks and horse-drawn wagons. And if it doesn’t look like a farm implement, it might be one of the unique Christmas floats that are also featured. It’s one of the best attended parades in the region, with about 25,000 spectators lining the streets in a typical year.
This will be the fifth year that the event will be accompanied by the Downtown Christmas Market. Vendors will be open from 1 to 6 p.m. You can visit with Santa, enjoy some food and complete your Christmas shopping.
The parade will begin at the corner of Barnard Blvd. and E. Edison Rd., proceed west on E. Edison, cross the Yakima Valley Highway and travel through downtown Sunnyside to Zillah Ave., continuing onto South 1st Street.
Awards, including plaques and cash awards, will be given in each parade division, plus a Sweepstakes Award for the best entry, They will be presented before the parade so the winners can be mentioned by the parade announcers at Centennial Square, at the corner of 6th and Edison.
The parade and the market are just two of the weekend’s highlights, which also include a tree-lighting ceremony in Centennial Square and a Festival of Trees cocktail hour at the Sunnyside Community Center.
The parade was begun by farmers and businesspeople in 1989, and it became an annual tradition that was led by Karen Friend and Sharon and Ervin Kilian. It has been a community project of the Sunnyside Noon Rotary Club since 2017. In recent years it has included more than 60 entries. Many local businesses continue to support this holiday tradition, and any funds not used for the event go toward supporting deserving community projects.
Applications for float entries are being accepted through Nov. 22, and there is no entry fee. An entry form can be requested online at lightedfarmparade.com, where you’ll also find links to lodging choices and information on becoming a sponsor, a parade participant or a vendor.