Merry Madrid

Dec. 1—Much like the former coal mining town where it's held, the Madrid Christmas Parade has made a notable comeback.

The city's Christmas lights were a source of pride in the Southwest for years, beginning in 1922; legend has it that Walt Disney saw the display, using it as inspiration for his theme parks. By the 1940s, the lights were gone, along with nearly all residents of the once-bustling town.

The parade resumed after the town was reborn as an artists' colony in the 1970s, pausing for a year during the pandemic. That proved to be a blip, as attendance has been strong the past few years both before and after 2020, volunteers say. They credit a segment about the parade that appeared on CBS Sunday Morning in December 2017, titled, "A shining Christmas in a once-dead mining town." It can be viewed via a link at themineshaft tavern.com/fun-stuff.

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Madrid Christmas Parade and December Open House is 4 p.m. Saturday, December 2. Parade begins at NM 14 and Back Road; participants must arrive by 3:30 p.m. Madrid is about 28 miles southwest of Santa Fe on the Turquoise Trail (Highway 14). Visit visitmadridnm.com/events for information.

"Ever since then, we've had very large turnouts," says Mine Shaft Tavern and Museum co-owner Melinda Bonewell, who is featured in the segment. This year's parade begins at 4 p.m. Saturday, December 2, leading into a town-wide holiday lighting at dusk. Businesses will turn on their holiday lights and stay open late on Saturdays for the rest of the month.

A red-nosed yak named Solo leads the parade, which also features an actor buffalo named Clyde and numerous Madroids — a synonym for "locals" in the Turquoise Trail town — making a ruckus with instruments and in other creative ways. The parade's length varies, depending on how rapidly Solo feels like walking.

"It's been as short as three or four minutes," says Michael Lancaster, who co-owns Calliope art gallery in Madrid and volunteers to help with the parade. "And last year I think went for 23 minutes."

Madrid's quirks and quirky characters sporadically attract national attention. Les Reasonover, another Madroid, portrays Santa Claus on the day of the parade; he was featured in both the CBS segment and an AARP magazine story, "Off The Grid in New Mexico."

Reasonover says he was approached eight or so years ago about serving as the parade's Santa.

"Well, there was a guy doing it — believe it or not, his name was R.U. Kidding," says Reasonover, who co-owned the since-closed Gallery 14 in Madrid with his partner, Barbara Fail. "He was a strange sort of fellow; he sometimes freaked the tourists out, especially the kids. He had a health issue right before Christmas, and the lady who was in charge with the merchants association came to me and basically said, 'We've asked everybody else in town, and you're our last choice. Can you do this?'"

Reasonover's goal is to not creep anyone out. Since the pandemic began, he says, he has mostly allowed people to approach him rather than vice versa. Some parade-goers recognize him from the CBS segment.

"I always tell people, I'm not that guy from the North Pole. He's a bad influence on children [because of] childhood obesity," Reasonover says. "I'm the anti-obesity Santa from the South Pole."

Reasonover and Lancaster estimate that the parade has drawn about 3,000 people a year the past few years, although it's difficult to know for sure because there's no official attendance count.

The parade's footprint is set to expand in 2024, Lancaster says, due to an influx of grant money. In the meantime, "we're trying new kinds of lightings. We're in discussions about hiring a lighting artist. Different things are going to happen on the street that have not been done before. We have more modern lighting these days, and we also have quite a bit of solar, which I think is great because all the merchants have to plug in on the poles in front of their yards to hook up to the general lighting. This way, we don't have to hinder their electric bills."

Some of those business owners, such as Lancaster, double as volunteers. Lancaster estimates that 20 to 25 Madroids are involved in planning meetings for the parade, while 10 to 15 help set up the lights.

People driving from the Santa Fe area should see the lights as soon as they round the bend near Oscar Huber Ballpark, Lancaster says.

"I think the ballpark and schoolhouses will be lit, and then the first business is [Gypsy Gem]. And then you go to the [Old Boarding House Mercantile], and it has lighting. As you get closer to the middle of town, there are more and more lights," he says. "We're offering some awards this year, so hopefully we're encouraging some residential people to get involved, as they always used to be."

To Bonewell, the influence on Disney is anything but legend.

"I sincerely believe that Walt Disney visited and was inspired by Madrid's Toyland by the ballpark," she says. "It had mechanical rides that Madrid employees club miners built for the children to enjoy. It had a Santa airplane, an Old Mother Hubbard shoe, a carousel, a train. It was really ahead of its time. Disneyland, when you look at the pictures, it's like, 'My gosh, he'd copy that 10 years later.'"