They can laugh about it -- now

For the folks who make it all happen, Holidazzle lore is enriched by these memorable snafus over the years:

• Leanne Steffens, who has served as a dresser for all 16 years, vividly recalled "the year the light bulbs fell and lay there like beached whales. They can't get up because their arms are inside the costume. Plus they're hollering and nobody can hear 'em."

• Mechanical whiz Mark Scamp chuckled over "the time north Minneapolis character Major Topps was in the parade and got arrested [for outstanding traffic tickets]. There were lots of police there, and they recognized him and pulled him off the float."

• Two police-related incidents occurred last year, dresser/driver Tyler Martin recounted. First, he was trying to track down some characters along the route to fix their costumes. "I got to about 8th Street and a policeman stopped me. I asked him, 'Have the pigs passed by here yet?' He said, 'I don't have time for this [stuff].'" On another night, "they were taking the floats back to the garage, and somebody had parked his car where he shouldn't have. The Gingerbread Float hit it. The guy called the cops to report a Gingerbread House hit-and-run."

• Michael Murnane and Scamp looked especially put out when discussing the year they had to take the floats to Chicago for two days, "a huge pain ... and it just so happened that the archbishop died and they canceled the first day," Murnane said. Added Scamp: "Then when it came time to leave after the second day, we had to use street people to help us load up the floats."

BILL WARD