United States: Falun Gong Practitioners Participate in Christmas Parade of Lights in the City of Grapevine

Although it is just the beginning of December, Christmas celebrations have been held in several places. On the evening of December 4, 2003, Falun Gong practitioners from Dallas went to the city of Grapevine, Texas to attend the annual Christmas Parade of Lights held in the downtown area. In addition to expressing appreciation to the local community, we attended the parade to help local residents to learn about Dafa.

Van decorated with banners and lotus flower	Female practitioners dressed in colourful Tang Dynasty costumes
Falun Gong practitioners' procession

Prior to the parade, the local practitioners made various preparations including making banners, costumes, decorations and so on. The collective efforts from the practitioners allowed our team to become one of the most attracting processions in the nearly 100 groups in the parade. Along the route, we received warm applause.

Three practitioners held a banner that read, "Falun Dafa" and "Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance", and led our group. Several young practitioners followed them. A group of female practitioners dressed in beautiful Tang Dynasty costumes danced gracefully. A number of practitioners dressed in golden-coloured exercise suits carefully demonstrated the Falun Gong exercises. A van decorated with big banners, a huge lotus flower and colourful lights followed in the end of the procession.

A female practitioner who had been arrested and persecuted in China for not giving up her belief sighed with emotion, "Here we can freely practice Falun Gong and introduce it to other people. Unfortunately, in China, hundreds of thousands of kind people are suffering the cruellest persecution just because they would not abandon their belief in ‘Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance.' We practitioners outside China really need to cherish all of our opportunities, make good use of our time to clarify the facts, help people to learn about Dafa and experience the wonderfulness of Dafa."