City Hall Sketch, Ocean City, NJ

Over Thanksgiving break we went to visit family in Ocean City, New Jersey.  I am always on the lookout for interesting buildings and when we drove over the bridge into town one building caught my eye.  A few days later I decided to walk to town to sketch that building.  When I found the street it was on I couldn't figure out why it was so busy, but then it dawned on me it was Black Friday and everyone was out shopping.  I made my way through the crowds over to the building but it continued to get more and more crowded and the police were blocking off the street. 

When I first sat down I was still able to see most of the building.  I probably sketched for about an hour when there got to be so many people I could barely see the building to draw it.  Then a man with a microphone started talking and they had the local theater kids singing Christmas carols.  After that Santa appeared on the roof.  It was really quite festive and everyone was cheering like crazy.  I thought Santa's appearance was going to be the end of it but then the fire truck showed up and they swung a big ladder over to him and he slowly walked down the ladder to the cheers of the whole town.  I heard a man near me say he hadn't missed this for fifteen years.  As I walked home I thought it was a funny, but fun tradition and that I had been quite lucky to catch Santa up there for my sketch.