The Los Gatos Children's Parade Turns 70. Its Rulebook Shows What the Town Chose to Keep.

On Dec. 10, 1956, Santa Claus flew into Los Gatos by helicopter. He landed on the Los Gatos High School football field, where about 1,000 children were waiting. Then he rode through the business district in a long red fire engine, tossing candy to the crowd. That day is the start of the tradition according to a 2007 Mercury News editorial.

The 70th Annual Children's Christmas/Holidays Parade steps off at 11 a.m. on Saturday, Dec. 5, rain or shine. This year, anyone tossing candy from an entry will be removed from the parade.

The first event was one adult performing for a thousand children. The modern parade puts thousands of children on the street as the performers, and the 2026 entry policies read like a list of ways to keep it that way.

Twenty-eight kids, a police car and a recreation director

The first true parade, called "Santa's Christmas Ride," went down Santa Cruz Avenue on Dec. 6, 1957. The 2007 Mercury News account says traffic stopped for an hour while a couple of hundred children walked among eight floats. It credits Gene Goldberg, Bus Benson and Dick Wall, along with many other volunteers, with starting the event.

Goldberg remembered an even smaller start. He helped launch the recreation department in 1955 and later became executive director of LGS Recreation. At the 59th parade in 2015 he told the Mercury News:

"The first parade consisted of 28 kids, a police car and me. The next year we had almost 200 participants. It feels great to have started something everyone enjoys."

Compare that with the most recent parade. In December 2025, the Los Gatan counted 172 confirmed units and 6,743 participants in the interactive program, including 36 marching-band units. That number counts marchers, not spectators. The parade has stayed around that size for at least a decade: the 2015 parade had an estimated 7,000 participants. The crowds along the curb are bigger still. In 2007, parade chairman Reed Graham expected 20,000 people in town for the 51st edition.

Between 1957 and 2025, the parade grew by adding children to the line of march.

The rules that keep the kids in front

The 2026 policies are published by the Los Gatos Lions Club and LGS Recreation, the parade's sponsors, which run it in cooperation with the Town of Los Gatos and Los Gatos High School. Read one at a time, the rules look like logistics. Read together, each one keeps attention on the children marching.

• Nothing thrown, nothing handed out. No toys, candy or other items can leave an entry. Any entry that breaks the rule is removed. The 1956 candy toss is now explicitly off the table.
• One Santa. Only the official parade Santa may appear. Entries are told not to dress anyone as Santa, so the moment children wait for at the end of the parade only happens once.
• Entries have to interest children. The Parade Committee can turn away any entry that doesn't fit the theme or is "not of interest to children." Every entry needs a Christmas or holiday theme.
• Businesses can march, but they can't advertise. For-profit entries are allowed for a fee. Vehicle signs are limited to the entry's company name, and no other solicitation or fundraising is permitted.
• No limousines, no car clubs, one vehicle per entry. Vehicles are capped at 40 feet long, 10 feet wide and 12 feet high. Anyone riding on a vehicle has to be visible.
• No alcohol anywhere. The ban covers floats, the staging area and the streets, for participants and spectators alike. The policies call it a children's event and ask everyone to honor that spirit.
• No stopping. Once the parade starts, every entry has to keep pace with the one ahead. Route marshals will move along any entry that falls behind.

Under that rule, thousands of marchers move as one continuous line, with no long pauses for a single float to show off.

The only judged entries are school bands

If the parade has a competitive side, it belongs to students. Under the 2026 policies, only school marching bands are judged. Representatives of the Pacific Coast Judging Association score them from a judging stand on the second-floor balcony of the Los Gatos Theatre, and bands are asked not to stop there. That puts the most closely watched stretch of the route on North Santa Cruz Avenue, in front of the theater.

The host group in 2025 was the Los Gatos High School Wildcat Marching Band, under director Ken Nakamoto, with drum majors Noam Ramon, Anya Agarwal and Heerod Amini. The R.J. Fisher Middle School marching band played "Jingle Bell Rock" with drum major Tessa Gregor. The start of the parade belongs to young people too. The 2025 program listed Los Gatos Boy Scout Troop 539 leading off with its opening banner and color guard. In 2015, the Los Gatos Youth Citizens of the Year signaled the step-off by blowing gold police whistles.

A grand marshal chosen for service to young people

Since 1971, the parade's grand marshal has been someone honored for service to the town's youth and community. Recent honorees show what that means in practice. Rick Miller led the 2023 parade. He was the parade chairman and Lions Club member who gave the radio call to start the 59th parade at 11:00:05 a.m. in 2015. Jim Barth followed in 2024.

In 2025 the honor went to Los Gatos High School teacher Kurt Kroesche. The Mercury News cited his classroom and extracurricular leadership and his mentoring. The Los Gatan reported that he and physics teacher Rachel Peters started the high school swim team to give students a place to belong.

The people running the parade have often grown up with it. Graham chaired the parade he had enjoyed as a child in town, taking over from longtime chairman Frank Bonacorsi.

Parade morning, starting before sunrise

The route hasn't changed shape for this year. It starts at Almendra Avenue and North Santa Cruz Avenue, runs south on North Santa Cruz to Main Street, then turns east on Main and ends at Church Street. The street closes long before the first band reaches the theater balcony.

1. 7:30 a.m. Trucks, vans and floats must be in the staging area.
2. 9 a.m. Access streets close, and all other entries need to be in position.
3. 11 a.m. The parade steps off.
4. 1 p.m. Everything brought into the staging area has to be cleared out.

There's no parking in the staging area or along the route. LGS Recreation posts a map of the staging area, the route and street closures on its holiday parade page. Entry position numbers and parade-day instructions go up on the same site by Friday, Nov. 6. For disability parking and viewing information, call LGS Recreation at 408-354-8700. Other questions can go to [email protected].

The rest of the weekend, and the one after

The parade sits in the middle of a downtown holiday stretch. The Los Gatos Chamber of Commerce listing describes Los Gatos in Lights as the Town's annual winter celebration, starting the season with the traditional tree lighting. The tree-lighting time and the Kiwanis market dates below come from the East Bay Times on Oct. 27.

The parade route and the market address are on the same few blocks of Main Street. So the weekend after the bands and floats clear out, the stretch near Church Street fills up again with booths.

Whether you're staking out a curb spot on North Santa Cruz this year or thinking about which Los Gatos streets sit within walking distance of the route, the team at Jide Homes knows how downtown works on parade morning and the rest of the year. If you'd like a local read on the blocks around Town Plaza Park, request a market consultation.