Folly Beach Christmas Parade

 

Nicolas had last weekend off work, so we made plans for a fun-filled Christmas celebration on Saturday.  First on our agenda was the Folly Beach Christmas Parade and Craft Fair.  The parade started at 1pm, so after breakfast, we drove down to Nick’s apartment and picked him up.

We were expecting a small parade, probably not more than 15 –20 minutes long, and boy, were we wrong!  We were approaching Folly Beach around 12:45, and cars were already parked along both sides of the road before we even got across the bridge!

We found a spot to park the Jeep along the side of the road, and walked across the bridge towards town. 

We saw some guys harvesting oysters, and they had quite a catch!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As we continued into town, we were amazed by the number of people gathered on the sidewalks on both sides of the road!  We walked about halfway down Main Street, and found a spot on the shady side of the sidewalk to watch the parade from.  We had gotten there just in time, and the parade started within minutes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The parade itself was a surprise, too, and lasted much longer than we expected! 

There was a marching band,

floats,

dogs,

and several old vehicles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There was also quite a variety of interesting vehicles and characters . . .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and the parade seemed to go on and on . . .

We were beginning to regret picking a spot on the shady side of the street, and tried to find a little patch of sunshine we could stand in!

This float reminded us of Danny!

Then there was the roller derby team . . .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As is usually the case with a parade, there were plenty of kids looking for candy . . . and plenty of people throwing it out to them!

These guys had shopping carts full of candy – good stuff – chocolate bars!  They were throwing it out by the handfuls!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One poor guy made the mistake of stopping in front of a group of kids to hand out candy – and they mobbed him!

Over an hour after it started, the end of the parade had arrived . . .

reindeer and Santa!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looks like the Grinch and Cindy Lou Who hitched a ride with Santa!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Christmas Parade was much more than we expected from the little seaside town of Folly Beach, and we really enjoyed it!  With the chilly temperatures, it even felt a little bit like Christmas!

 

We had a few hours to kill before the next event on our agenda, so we walked through the craft fair (now that was small!), and some of the little beach shops in town.

 

Tom found a new hat!

 

 

 

 

We had some dinner – Tom and Nick both had fish & chips (HUGE fish!) and I had a burger.  Yummy!

Afterwards, we walked out on the river pier,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and went to mass in a little church right in Folly Beach, and then made our way to our next Christmas Celebration . . . but that needs to be a separate blog post!