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On a cold, rainy Friday night a couple of weeks ago, I took to the streets of historic downtown West Chester, PA to act as the “social host” for the Mars Old-Fashioned Christmas Parade presented by QVC. The weather may have been nasty, but the company and the experience was an incredible experience to connect with our local neighbors. The event featured marching bands from local colleges and high schools, spectacular floats, and the arrival of the one and only…SANTA CLAUS! According to USA Today, our annual parade is one of the top ten places in the country to experience the arrival of old St. Nick during the holiday season! There were more than 35,000 people who came out to little old West Chester to experience the magic.

QVC encouraged all of the hosts who were “working” the event to bring their families. Both of my girls, Georgia and Grace, came with me, along with my husband, Dan. We got to see the Jingle Elf Run, where hundreds of runners dressed in creative holiday costumes, competed in the run, AND for the honor of being awarded the BEST elf-costume! After that we headed over to the parade, where we saw Santa along with tons of awesome floats, and my favorite part—Brazilian dancers! Mary Beth Roe and Courtney Cason waved to the crowd from our QVC car.

Jennifer Coffey was interviewing some of the littlest parade-goes, asking them about their favorite holiday memories. She asked one of my daughters what she wanted for Christmas, and after thinking for a minute she yelled, “diamonds!” Jennifer got such a kick out of that, the sparkly jewelry junkie that she is She brought her daughter, Gabby, who had a blast seeing her mom work the crowd!

For the second year, Carolyn Gracie and Dan Hughes were the Emcees for the parade. They are SO good at that… their banter together is priceless, and so funny. They represented the QVC family well!

Nancy Hornback and I spent a lot of time in the QVC Holiday Village Tent, trying (unsuccessfully) to stay at least a little dry in the rainy weather! But it turned out to be tons of fun, we got to meet so many of our local neighbors, listen to the QVC Singers, and snacked on FREE Cheryl’s cookies  And of course, I did what I came to do…I tweeted and posted on Facebook all of the happenings, making sure to connect people to the parade who were hundreds of miles away!

(Nancy and I tweeting!)

(The QVC Singers made the tent feel so festive with their caroling!)

I always love an opportunity to get out with my fellow QVC hosts, have some social time, and really get to know the people who watch us on TV every day, and make what we do possible. QVC has been headquartered here since 1986, and we employ about 2,700 people in the West Chester area, so it’s great to be out and about in our “back yard!”

For those of you who live in the area, we will be at it again next year, I hope you can make it! If you want to see more of the fun we had this year, be sure to tune into to QVC on Christmas Day, where you will be able to see great live footage from this fun event.

Happy Holidays to everyone!!

XO,

Kerstin