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Show Must Go On: Mummers Will Strut On New Year's Day

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The show must go on. Officials have decided to go ahead with the Mummers Parade on New Year's Day.

The annual Philadelphia tradition had been in jeopardy of being postponed because of the extremely cold weather that has gripped the region.

Officials were taking a wait-and-see approach, but at a private meeting Saturday, the heads of five divisions voted 3-2 in favor of the Mummers strutting along Broad Street as originally scheduled on Monday.

John Pignati, president of the Philadlephia Mummers String band Association, says he voted against it.

"The first thing you got to worry about it's our health," he said. "That's the number one priority here. I mean we have kids, we have elderly men that play instruments. I mean God forbid if something happens that's the number one, then we have our spectators you got to worry about. Now you want to talk about performing I don't even know what it's going to be like. You know, it is what it is, now I have to deal with it and go forward with it."

The performers and those lining the sidewalks to watch the parade will be met with freezing temperatures and wind chills dipping into the single digits.

The parade route is already lined with barricades and the city will be setting up heating tents and warm buses along the route for the Mummers.

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