Garden Ramblings: Half Moon Bay Christmas

Half Moon Bay celebrates the Night of Lights on the first Friday in December. We went into town to take part in the festivities - the lighting of the Christmas tree, Christmas carols by the Half Moon Bay High School Chorus, chestnuts roasting on an open fire - Lee had never had roasted chestnuts before - free roasted marshmallows for the kids, the parade with all of the floats and people decorated with lights (which was a good thing as it was DARK), all of the children scrambling for the candy that was tossed from the parade floats, entertainment at La Piazza, lots of people dressed in red and wearing Santa hats, even the pets!

It was a true small town event and we really enjoyed all of it! There were hula dancers performing and the evening was closed out by the Peninsula Scottish Fiddlers doing lots of great Scottish folk songs.

The night was clear and very cold (for us!) so a great way to kick off the holiday season. And it looked like lots of people were taking advantage of the shops being open, too.

On Saturday night we went down to the harbor the the "lighting of the boats" - each year many of the boat owners decorate their boats with lights and it's so pretty on the water. Santa was there listening to wish lists, a small band played Christmas carols and the HMB High School chorus sang again.

We were able to go down on the docks where the boats were anchored to get a close up look at the decorated boats. There was a contest for the best decorated boat. One of the boats was all festive and "Santa", in shorts and tank top, was singing and dancing to music. We decided that he'd possibly had too much eggnog!

But it was lots of fun, and a good way to keep the holiday spirit going!