Near-freezing temperatures don't deter crowds at Fort Worth's Parade of Lights

People embraced the cold Sunday night in anticipation of the annual Fort Worth Parade of Lights. 

Cuddled up on Commerce Street, families bundled up and got to downtown early in the afternoon to have a front row seat at the event.

Temperatures dropped from the 50s to the 30s while they waited, but people like Abigail Grubauth say they don’t mind.

“The temperature is really cold, but I love it!”

The thought of near-freezing temperatures did not stop Victoria Pantoja and her cousins from this tradition either.

“We get down here at noon and we bring our wagon and set up.”

Albert Mendoza sacrificed watching the last quarter of the Cowboys game to get some prime real estate for his children to watch the parade.

“Everybody coming out and just being together,” he said.

Coming out early paid off as the parade, with 100 floats, celebrating 100 years of Cook Children’s Medical Center, got underway. Horse-drawn carriages, antique cars, big balloons, mini motorcycles, even an armadillo kicked off the holiday season

Everything from vehicles to people were covered in as many as half a million lights, causing the entire one-and-a-half-mile parade route to glow, outshining the near freezing temperatures.