It will be a full day of holiday festivities when the Pacific Beach Holiday Parade returns to Garnet Avenue with plenty of floats, bands, pets and personalities Saturday, Dec. 8.
The procession rolls out Haines Street at noon led by Pacific Beach’s honorary mayor, Karl Jaedtke. He’ll take over announcing duties at Cass Street, where parade judges will award entrants in categories such as best marching band, community entry, float and car or truck.
“The ones that are always the big draws are the high school bands,” said Benjamin Nicholls, executive director of Discover Pacific Beach. “A lot of the different high school bands from across the city are coming and that’s always a favorite. We always look forward to some of the community floats and businesses ” they usually take the opportunity to go all out, have fun and build some nice, attractive floats."
Along with the community floats and marching bands, the Anheuser-Busch Clydesdales will be returning along with plenty of dancers, children’s groups, bicyclists, rollerskaters, tricked-out trucks and cars, politicians, police, military, lifeguards and firefighters.
“The one thing that is good for this year is we really are working to get enough support to make a donation to the firefighters because they worked so hard during the recent fires,” Nicholls said. We will have at least five fire trucks in the parade.”
And of course, it wouldn’t be a holiday parade without Santa Claus concluding the parade atop a fire engine from Pacific Beach’s Fire Station 21.
A new addition to this year’s parade is Santa’s Village, which will be located across from the judges at Cass and Garnet. It will include a number of vendors, children’s activities and a photo booth for pictures with Santa after he concludes the parade between 2:30 and 3 p.m.
“We have 26 handpicked vendors ” the best vendors from BeachFest and some of the other festivals in the city ” they’re going to be bringing out their Christmas arts and crafts,” Nicholls said.
The holiday celebration continues into the evening with the annual Mission Bay Boat Parade of Lights, which leaves the channel west of Quivira Basin at 7 p.m. and runs along the west side of Mission Bay and will end at the South Ingraham Street Bridge at approximately 9 p.m. and is followed by SeaWorld’s lighting of its Sky Tower Tree of Lights.
Organizers recommend Ski Beach on East Vacation Isle, Crown Point Drive and the west side of Fiesta Island as the best viewing spots.
For more information on the Mission Bay Christmas Boat Parade of Lights call the Mission Bay Yacht Club at (858) 488-0501.
For parade information visit the Discover Pacific Beach Web site, www.pacificbeach.org, or call the offices of the Pacific Beach Town Council at (858) 483-6666.