Santa and Sa’fyre spread Christmas cheer

As the first floats of the 48th annual Daily Gazette Holiday Parade made their way down State Street between lines of thousands of cheering onlookers, 8-year-old Sa’fyre Terry took her seat next to Mrs. Claus on the parade’s final float and began practicing her wave.

With Santa Claus on the roof above her, she jingled sleigh bells in one hand, waved with the other, and said in her soft voice, “Merry Christmas!”

The seat of honor, given each year to one child, usually through a contest, was offered this year to Sa’fyre, the sole survivor of a house fire in May 2013 that took the lives of her father and three siblings.

The young girl suffered severe burns, requiring months of surgery and recovery. She lost a hand, and then a foot, and the surgeries are not finished.

“She’s an inspiration to everybody,” said Christine DelGallo, a close family friend and Sa’fyre’s chaperone for the evening. “I just think every year that she’s here with us is a gift. And to celebrate the holiday season together is amazing.”

Sitting on the porch of Santa’s workshop Saturday evening as she waited to start moving, she said she wanted to hear Santa’s trademark “Ho! Ho! Ho!” The order was taken and a moment later St. Nick bellowed from the roof: “Ho! Ho! Ho!”

She cheered and rang her sleigh bells. “One more time!” she said.

“Ho! Ho! Ho!”

DelGallo sat on the float with her, as did her adoptive siblings, Jasmine and Jacob Doler.

“She is the most thankful and upbeat child,” DelGallo said. “I don’t think she even understands the magnitude of what she’s been through. She displays such a loving heart.”

The parade, which stepped off at 5 p.m. from Schenectady County Community College, featured hundreds of marchers and, if the past is any indication, somewhere around 20,000 onlookers.

The glowing, colorful floats, prepared around a “Musicals” theme, filed past Sa’fyre one by one as she awaited her turn.

Olivia Girolami, 11, chatted and danced anxiously with the rest of her parade crew from the Brown School in Schenectady, which designed a “Beauty and the Beast” float.

This was her second year in the parade.

“I just like representing my school and I like doing this because it’s really fun,” she said.

They chose “Beauty and the Beast,” she said, because it’s the play the school will be performing this year. She was playing multiple parts in the parade, including a fork and a plate.

“I like every year waving at people and smiling and being happy,” she said.

When Olivia and the 20 or so other students from the Brown School began marching, the very first parade fans they passed were Karin and Phil Shaw, with their 7-year-old son, Emmett. The Shaws walked across the bridge from Scotia and set up camp just west of SCCC’s pedestrian bridge over State Street.

Last year, they walked in the parade with the YMCA, they said. This was their first time as spectators.

“We kind of know what it’s like to be walking in the parade, so we’re trying to clap and cheer for everybody so they feel good,” Karin said.

And as the very first fans that marchers would see, they knew they had a special responsibility to bring the cheer.

“We’ve got to warm them up on the way in,” Phil said. “There’s not a lot of people right here, so we have to cheer a little extra.”

As Emmett raced back and forth on the sidewalk with a glow stick, the float of Legere Restorations passed by. “Look at how pretty that is! Hi guys!” Karin shouted. Then came the Amsterdam High School marching band, which got another hearty cheer.

Finally, the last float approached. Emmett spotted it, but it took a minute for him to make out who was riding on top. “Santa!” he shouted.

As the float passed, Santa boomed out, “Hello everybody! Ho! Ho! Ho!”

And down in front, tucked tightly next to Mrs. Claus, Sa’fyre was waving her hands, ringing her bell, and, though her voice was too faint to make out in the din of the parade, almost certainly calling out as she’d rehearsed, “Merry Christmas!”

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