As thousands of holiday revelers lined downtown Turlock for Friday’s Christmas Parade, there was one family enjoying the event in style.

The Cramer family had front row seats to the parade. They were wrapped in warm flannel blankets and were served snacks throughout the evening while waiting for the Gingerbread Dreamland- themed parade to make its way down Main Street. The Cramers were the lucky winners of the Turlock High School Talk of the Town Booster Club contest. The club supports THS’ drama department and speech and debate teams.

“I usually sit way down by Denair Park at the beginning [of the parade],” said Meredith Cramer.

Two of Cramer’s children Ben, 15, and Charlie, 13, were also enjoying the VIP treatment on Friday. Ben’s favorite part of the event are the “lights and excitement,” he said, while Charlie said “the floats.”

There were plenty of floats for Charlie, the Cramer family and the other estimated 20,000 attendees at the annual Christmas Parade as the city of Turlock Recreation Department reported 88 entries this year.

One of the more unique entries this year was Stanislaus County Supervisor Vito Chiesa and his fellow supervisors atop a 1907 vintage cable car.

The cable car was on loan from Shane Parson, who acquired it 10 years ago and has used it the past several years in the Ceres Christmas Parade and to open the Ceres Christmas Tree Lane. Parson said that when the cable car was decommissioned from service in San Francisco, it was put on a truck frame and used as a touring car in the city. It was then put in storage for three decades before making its way to a Modesto scrap yard, where Parson found it.

“We did a lot of refurbishing. And still need to do some more. Then we decorated it with lights and we’ve been doing the opening of Christmas Tree Lane in Ceres,” he said.

Parson said he was happy to lend it to the county supervisors for use in Turlock.

Chiesa said he was excited to be riding on the cable car in the parade this year. His usual ride is a pickup truck decorated with lights. The Hughson almond farmer said that Christmas is his favorite time of year (it being the slow season for farmers) and he enjoys participating in the parade.

“They always have huge crowds in Turlock. Turlock does such a good job with their Christmas parade, and they have so many entries. It’s really the start for me of the holiday season,” he said.

It takes dozens of city workers and volunteers to make the annual holiday event a success, from the road crews to the Turlock Police and Fire personnel and the service clubs who lend a hand getting the entries all line up and ready to go. Helping with this year’s event include the Kiwanis Club, Sunrise Rotary Club and the Turlock Amateur Radio Club. And for the past 15 years, the Turlock Firefighters Local 2434 have been the event’s main sponsor.

“This is one of our biggest events, and one that we look forward to,” said City of Turlock event assistant Marissa Mellow. “We start in January, as soon as it’s over almost we start [planning] again. We absolutely love the Christmas parade. We love the community and everybody that comes down; it’s just really festive. It’s a great way to start the holidays.”