The Children's Christmas Parade is a major Christmas parade held to benefit Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. Beginning in 1981 with Egleston Children’s Hospital (which later merged with Scottish Rite Children's Hospital), it is held on the first Saturday in December, which is also the second weekend after Thanksgiving. In its earliest years, it was sponsored by Davison's, one of the two major regional department stores based in Atlanta.
The Children's Christmas Parade begins at Peachtree Street near Baker Street in downtown Atlanta. The 1.5-mile (2.4 km) route follows Atlanta's famed Peachtree Street southward before turning right onto Marietta Street at Five Points. The parade then turns left ending near the entrance to Centennial Olympic Park.[1] This route takes it by the 1927 Davison's (later overtaken by Macy's) building at 200 Peachtree.
It is aired live from 10:30 AM EST until noon on WSB-TV 2.1 in HDTV, previously after a half-hour pre-show (until 2010) about the children at the hospital.[2][3][4] It is re-run again on Christmas Day without the pre-show.
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.[5][6] Even though the Festival of Trees left its longtime home in 2007,[7] 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.[8] In 2008, the "festival" was a gala hosted by the Savannah College of Art and Design satellite campus in Atlanta.[9]
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