It’s a hustle and bustle kind of day in Downtown San Luis Obispo.
“We're super, super excited, so it's obviously our first year open,” said Coco Barash, manager at Corazón Café. “We're in a very good location for it, so we're going to have some more staff coming out.”
One of the co-owners of Corazón Café will be an announcer in Spanish for the parade, and they’ll have the stage right outside of the coffee shop, which will be open during the parade.
Co-owner Pedro Arias López said his wife will be one of the announcers. They’ll be serving champurrado, a chocolate-based drink, along with gingerbread and Oreo lattes.
Paradegoers were on a mission on Friday to get the best spot for the 47th Annual Downtown SLO Holiday Parade even if that meant dropping off chairs and blankets in the morning.
“We were a little hesitant, but then we saw other chairs, so that kind of gave us some courage,” said Becky Gerkey, who dropped off chairs to reserve a spot. “We're like, ‘Hey, let's leave our chairs and we'll come back and the chairs will be there and we'll have a spot.' Hopefully.”
Maggie Kovach with Downtown SLO told KSBY News they are expecting between 8,000 and 10,000 attendees. There will be 85 floats with the theme Out of this World.
The San Luis Obispo High School Marching Band is ready for a holiday party.
“One of them is like a medley of a bunch of the classics. We've got Frosty, of course, you know, then a little dance surprise that we've got for everybody else at the parade,” said Sofia Aguilera, Lead Drum Major for the San Luis Obispo High School Marching Band.
Sofia Aguilera is proud to represent her school at such an important event.
“It’s just something I really love doing,” Aguilera said. “Being a leader, especially a young Hispanic woman, has been like, really great to show that off in the community for other girls like me who want to do it.”
Attendees are also looking forward to seeing the Cal Poly Mustang Band.
“As one of the drum majors of the Mustang Band, I'll be in the front of the block while we're performing in the Christmas parade tonight in downtown SLO,” said Lilly Ruiz.
Ruiz has some tricks up her sleeve.
“We have a special Christmas tune commissioned for the band that we're going to be playing that includes a few traditional Christmas songs, as well as a school song and a favorite pep tune that we like to play,” she added.
The parade starts at 7 p.m. and runs for about two hours. Streets will remain closed until 11 p.m. Friday.
