Due to the current pandemic, Lehighton’s momentous 50th annual Halloween Parade has been postponed until next year.

The decision to put off the spectacle that was to have been held on Oct. 10 was made by the committee recently, according to parade chairwoman Julie Harris.

“We all agreed due to the circumstances that are going on with the health issues and with the groups, a lot of groups can’t have meetings, bands aren’t getting together,” Harris said.

“With this being the 50th parade, we didn’t want it where (for) so many years, we’ve had a large parade, six divisions, we didn’t want to have a 50th parade and have it only one division.

“It wouldn’t be right to the groups that come in year after year, and also to the borough. We’ve always had a big following between the participation and the spectators that are watching.”

However, Harris stressed that the parade has been postponed, and not canceled.

“We discussed it; it was a hard decision,” she said. “We had to make our decision now; we couldn’t wait any longer.”

That didn’t make things any easier, Harris said.

“It was extremely difficult for us to come to this decision; we were just hoping that everything would have worked out that we could have had it this year,” she said. “We’ve been looking forward to the 50th parade for so long.”

Harris added, “It was a very, very hard decision. We really did not want to have to postpone until next year, but we had to make our decision right now because the groups, bands need to know months in advance so they can begin preparing.”

Despite the somber news, Harris said she expects the 50th annual event to turn out exceptionally well once it’s held in 2021.

“We’re hoping that everybody will understand our position why we had to make this decision,” she said.

“And now, we have a little extra time to hopefully make next year’s parade even bigger than this year’s (would have been).”