On the evening of December 5, crowds of people filled with holiday cheer lined the streets of Orange Avenue to celebrate as a community during Coronado\u2019s annual Christmas parade and tree lighting. The parade started at six pm and ended at around seven. The march began on Orange Avenue and looped at RH Dana and Adella. Many students had the opportunity to be a part of the parade and, for the first time ever, CoSA\u2019s Musical Theater and Drama conservatory participated in it.<\/p>\n
Among those who helped bring the parade to life was Dawn Bright, the costume designer for MTD\u2019s recent productions such as Alice by Heart, Cabaret, and The Addams Family, who took part in costuming CoSA for the event. \u201cWe\u2019re pulling a bunch of costumes we had, and then I\u2019m turning them even more Christmas-y,\u201d Bright said. \u201cI\u2019m trying to pull the biggest costumes that we have that are just show stoppers.\u201d As well as costuming, she also walked the parade and had safety pins ready to make sure nothing fell off while walking down Orange.<\/p>\n
Though this is the first time MTD has participated in the parade, Bright is no stranger to community events. \u201cI have done a lot of parades over the years and participated in them and helped out with them,\u201d Bright said. \u201cI\u2019m like experienced in [something] called wrangling \u2013 basically giving water and helping people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Students in our school\u2019s NJROTC program also took part in walking in the parade, holding flags and marching in uniform. Senior Myriam Armetta was a part of the color guard and carried the Navy flag. While she has had experiences in color guard from the past, performing while marching down the street at the same time came with its own challenges. \u201cAt first, it was really difficult to navigate holding the flag and also making sure to march in a straight line and to have to kind of just trust my gut on where I\u2019m going. Depending on the wind, the flag was either in my face or my friends\u2019 faces,\u201d Armetta said. However, after a few minutes of walking she got the hang of it and was able to enjoy what made being in the parade special for her. \u201cWhen I was walking by some people called out my name […] it\u2019s super sweet to get to have people see what you can do. So I thought that was super fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another Senior marching for the NJROTC program was Anika Talavera, commanding the color guard and carrying an American flag. With experience from the past, it was no struggle for Talavera. \u201cI did the color guard because I\u2019ve been doing them for years and I have a lot of experience,\u201d Talavera said. \u201cI was also in last year\u2019s parade and [the Homecoming] parade.\u201d While marching directly behind the band made it difficult to hear, the team persisted and worked together smoothly. \u201cSomehow we always get set behind the band and so I can barely hear myself saying the commands, but the people in my detail were great,\u201d Talavera said.<\/p>\n
For her, the most memorable part of the parade was before it began, witnessing everyone\u2019s joy and holiday spirit. \u201cMy favorite part of being in the parade is at the beginning when everyone\u2019s lining up and everyone\u2019s just so happy,\u201d Talavera said. \u201cIt\u2019s a Friday and we\u2019re all coming out and showing up for our community. You see old friends and family, people from school and the community and so it\u2019s a really special tradition.\u201d<\/p>\n
The parade concluded with the annual tree-lighting ceremony, where Santa himself came to illuminate the massive 120-foot tall tree in Rotary Park, marking the night as one to remember and setting our expectations high for the many more Coronado Christmas parades to come.<\/p>\n
VOL. 13, NO. 8 – Dec. 17, 2025<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On the evening of December 5, crowds of people filled with holiday cheer lined the streets of Orange…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":101834,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[33207,74,76,75],"class_list":["post-101833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-islander_times","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}