Homer’s Santa Bash Parade Might Get Political In 2026

I think we can all agree that Thanksgiving and Christmas parades are a great way for everybody to come together and enjoy the holiday season and watch the creativity of the floats and procession carry through our downtowns.

I think it’s one of the last things that’s truly sacred and free from controversy, but all of that may change in the city of Homer in Michigan, as recently they made a Facebook post regarding their Santa Bash Parade this year, which vaguely alludes to them welcoming in controversy for 2026.

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They don’t indicate which party, but in a recent Facebook post, apparently not welcoming a political organization into the parade has somehow caused controversy, and they say they plan to change that next year:

It was not our intention to cause any negative feelings in regards to tonight’s event, but it has been brought to our attention that, regardless of intention, it was wrong of us to pursue this path. This year will be our last year operating the parade in the manner that we have, and we will implement parade applications for the 2026 Santa Bash Parade.

As they continued, they seemed to indicate that next year they plan on allowing political parties to join the parade:

We intend to do right by our community in the coming years and contact all political organizations and invite them to join in our parade. We are truly sorry this situation has happened and has been an issue of debate. We are working to rectify this in the future.

This, to me, seems like a terrible idea, and you can basically bet that any political party that joins a parade will trigger people who are there to enjoy themselves to boo and verbally protest against it. I think it’s a terrible idea for politics to be completely left out of holiday celebrations like this.

However, one person made a good point, hoping this was a tongue-in-cheek response to a particular political party being turned away from applying to be in the parade:

I'm praying this is a tounge-in-cheek sassy sarcastic librarian response and not in fact one of our last sacred places free of politics 24/7 in our communities.