Manhattan Beach celebrates holidays with 29th Annual Fireworks show

Thousands of Manhattan Beach residents wandered from house parties to the Pier Sunday evening to visit with Santa, play in the snow at the Skechers snow park, listen to the Mira Costa Jazz Ensemble, and cantor Ari Perelmuter and join the family sing along with Joe’s Band.

The downtown was closed to traffic and lower Manhattan Beach Boulevard was transformed into an amphitheater covered with blankets and beach chairs for picnicking, socializing and listening to the music.

Then, precisely at 7 p.m. the 29th Annual Fireworks show lit up the sky over the pier. The show is underwritten each year by Skechers and this year included an encore underwritten by computer accessories manufacturer Belkin. The show was produced by founder Pete Moffett.

This was the first year since the start of the holiday fireworks show’s founding in 1983, that the Hyperion Outfall Serenaders, the city’s official band, did not perform.

“It’s the end of the era,” said Karen Hill, whose husband Dave Freeman was the band’s tuba player until his death several years ago. Hill, is a police department volunteer and helped with crowd control, under the direction of Sgt. Steve Kitsios. ER  

 

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