Photo Provided THE ARRIVAL of Christmas celebrating the birth of Jesus is marked in communities throughout Eastern Ohio with parades including bands, floats and other units. Crowds lined Belmont Street in Bellaire to watch this procession move down the street.

By BETTY?POKAS, Times Leader Area Editor
PARADES are nothing new, but there are various reasons for the processions.
Holidays, festivals, sports victories, circuses, special ceremonies or special events such as the Lindbergh flight or an advance in space exploration are some of the reasons for parades.
Impromptu parades are sometimes rapidly organized in Eastern Ohio after a major  football victory with the team riding on a fire truck.
Parades, however, aren’t recent events as cave paintings in Spain indicate there were parades an estimated 10,000 years ago. These might have involved prehistoric men carrying back game killed during a successful hunt.
A little later, there were the processions in places such as ancient Rome after  military victories.
The accompanying pictures show two parades as well as an occasion for band music in the Ohio Valley.
Pokas can be reached at timesleader@timesleaderonline.co.