The Newport Beach Christmas Parade is a magical event that happens each year with boats/yachts traveling down a route while decorated in fantastic lights. But how did this event come to be? In 1907, John Scarpa began a tradition by lighting boats decorated in Japanese lanterns and taking visitors around the bay. However, a year later on July 4th this would be expanded and turned into what is credited as the first lighted boat parade. This would eventually be known as the Tournament of lights in the early days with thousands of visitors and historians participating in a contest to see which boat was decorated better. Unfortunately this is the 1900s so in 1914 the event was put on pause because of something called world War 1. In 1919 Joseph Beek continued the event was back on and excluding a couple years for world war 2, the tournament of lights was held every year until 1949 because the old people were wary of the spectacle attracting so much foot traffic near the harbor. "But Disco this doesn't sound Christmas at all still, it's celebrated on July 4th you idiot" You might think and to that I say screw you buddy because in 1946 a separate group of people started attaching a Christmas tree to a decorated boat to float around on christmas and in later years Joseph Beek and his family were in charge of using their boats for the tree. Gradually more boats also decorated in lights would follow Joseph Beek's boat and the tradition would be come to be known as the Newport Beach Christmas Parade that features over 100+ vessels each year in Southern California, completely free to the public