Elizabethtown Christmas Parade, Small Business Saturday highlight first holiday weekend
The Christmas season begins this weekend in Elizabethtown.
Saturday, downtown stores will have holiday sales in conjunction with Small Business Saturday.
Sunday, the Christmas Parade, sponsored by the Elizabethtown-White Lake Chamber of Commerce, will take place. It’s scheduled to begin at 3 p.m.
“It’s a very busy weekend and a great weekend to kick off the holiday shopping season,” said Dawn Maynard, who is the Chamber’s executive director.
The gospel recording group Michael Boykin and The Mighty Voices will be the grand marshals for Sunday’s parade. The quintet will be singing as they lead entries along the parade route from Town Hall down Broad Street to Poplar Street before ending along King Street.
The parade will end as Santa Claus, who reportedly is coming directly from the North Pole on Sunday, will make his appearance while sitting atop a horse-drawn carriage.
The parade will include a variety of non-profit groups, schools, bands, marching groups, baton twirlers, Scouts, Shriners Clubs, and floats, Maynard said.
Several stores along the route will be open Sunday before and after the parade for the convenience of holiday shoppers, Maynard said.
The day before the parade, many downtown Elizabethtown businesses will participate in Small Business Saturday, which was begun by American Express in 2010 to help independently run small companies and businesses with their holiday sales during one of the biggest shopping weekends of the year.
“The businesses downtown have great sales going on. The stores will be having different things inside throughout the day,” Maynard said. “The Town of Elizabethtown has allowed the local craft vendors to set up every Saturday throughout the holiday season at the Cape Fear Farmers market.”
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