By late October, you can feel the season changing in the South Bay.
Not necessarily in the weather. There are still warm afternoons at the beach and plenty of people walking around in flip-flops. But homes start filling with pumpkins and Halloween decorations. Kids are planning costumes and school parades. Before long, lights appear downtown, the Manhattan Beach Pier glows against the evening sky, and familiar holiday traditions begin returning to the calendar.
Then come the things that might sound slightly improbable anywhere else: racing pumpkins toward the ocean, building snowmen out of sand, sledding on snow brought to the beach and watching December fireworks over the Pacific.
If you've lived here for a while, these aren't simply events. They're part of what makes the South Bay so special during the holidays.
Families experience them year after year. You run into neighbors and friends. Children grow up with them. And along the way, these traditions become part of your family's own history in the South Bay.
Halloween Starts in the Neighborhoods
One of the first signs that Halloween has arrived is the World Famous Pumpkin Race in Manhattan Beach.
The tradition, which began here in 1990, sends homemade pumpkin racers careening down Manhattan Beach Boulevard toward the ocean. Part of the fun is seeing what people have built. Part of it is waiting to see which pumpkins make it down the hill and which meet a less dignified end along the way.
It's quirky, a little chaotic and very Manhattan Beach.
2026 EVENT DETAILS
36th Annual World Famous Pumpkin Race
Sunday, October 18, 2026
Festival begins at noon | Races begin at 2 PM
Manhattan Beach Boulevard & Manhattan Beach Pier
Official Event Information →
As Halloween gets closer, the neighborhoods get into it too. Some homes go all out with decorations, and by Halloween morning, elementary schools are filled with kids arriving in costume. Parades start the school day, teachers get involved and parents come to watch. For families with young children, those school traditions become some of the memories that stick.
Then comes Halloween night.
Trick-or-treaters flood neighborhoods throughout Hermosa and Manhattan Beach, but the walk streets are especially fun. Parents pull younger kids in wagons, children spill from house to house, neighbors sit outside and homes that started decorating weeks earlier finally get their audience.
With no cars moving through the walk streets, entire blocks can feel like one big neighborhood Halloween party.
None of it is particularly elaborate on its own. That's part of the appeal. These traditions happen at schools, in neighborhoods and on downtown streets, with many of the same families returning as their children get older.
And Then, Almost Overnight, It's the Holidays
The pumpkins disappear and the lights start going up.
One of the first nights that really feels like the holidays is the Manhattan Beach Pier Lighting and Holiday Open House.
Downtown fills with families. Local choirs perform. Carolers wander through the streets. Shops stay open, restaurants fill up, and people linger, stopping to see friends or ducking into local businesses as they make their way toward the pier.
Then the pier lights come on against the dark Pacific, with living Christmas trees lining the walkway out over the water.
There aren't many places where Christmas trees, carolers, a lighted pier and the ocean all belong in the same scene. Here, somehow, they do.
2026 EVENT DETAILS
Manhattan Beach Pier Lighting & Holiday Open House
Wednesday, November 18, 2026 | 6–9 PM
Downtown Manhattan Beach & Manhattan Beach Pier
Holiday music • Shopping • Dining • Pier lighting
Official Event Information →
A few days later, the celebration moves down the coast for Hermosa for the Holidays.
Pier Avenue and Pier Plaza become gathering places for the weekend, bringing together local businesses, families and neighbors as Hermosa kicks off its own holiday season.
That's part of what makes these downtown celebrations feel different from a trip to a shopping center. You aren't simply checking names off a gift list. You're shopping at local businesses, stopping for dinner or a drink, running into people you know and spending an evening in the community where you live.
2026 EVENT DETAILS
Hermosa for the Holidays
November 21–22, 2026 | 10 AM–8 PM
Downtown Hermosa Beach
Official Event Information →
For families with younger children, Santa photos at Gum Tree have become another familiar Hermosa tradition, with the event benefiting HBEF.
And then there is the annual search for the Christmas tree.
For Steve and his family, that has often meant the Hermosa Beach Kiwanis Holiday Tree Lot. It's one of those wonderfully familiar Hermosa places during the holidays. You go to pick out a tree, but inevitably you see someone you know. Kids wander between the rows while families debate whether a tree is too tall, too wide or somehow just right. Then everyone figures out how they're going to get it home.
The lot has been part of the Hermosa holiday season for generations, and proceeds go back into the community through the Kiwanis Club's support of local students and organizations.
It's a simple tradition, but those are often the ones that stick.
Some Traditions Give Back
The holidays here also have a strong tradition of people showing up for one another.
One of the most anticipated examples is the Sandpipers Holiday Homes Tour.
For one weekend, beautifully decorated South Bay homes open their doors for the season. Local designers, florists, retailers and other businesses help transform the homes, making the tour a showcase of the community's creativity as much as the homes themselves. The accompanying Holiday Market brings even more local and small businesses into the weekend.
But the homes are only part of the reason the tradition has endured. The tour supports Sandpipers' philanthropic work, turning something festive into something that gives back well beyond the weekend itself.
2026 EVENT DETAILS
34th Annual Sandpipers Holiday Homes Tour
December 4–6, 2026
South Bay
Holiday Homes Tour • Holiday Market
Tickets on sale October 2026
Official Event Information →
That same spirit appears in different ways throughout the season. Local schools and organizations collect toys and food. Families participate in holiday giving programs. The Kiwanis tree lot supports community causes. Gum Tree's Santa photos benefit local schools.
And then hundreds of Santas take over the Strand.
The Santa Stroll is difficult to miss. A sea of Santa hats and red suits heads from the Hermosa Pier toward Manhattan Beach and back again, all while raising money for Mychal's Learning Place.
It's fun and hilarious in exactly the right way.
And underneath the spectacle is something you see again and again here during the holidays: people finding ways to celebrate together while supporting organizations that matter to the community.
2026 EVENT DETAILS
8th Annual Santa Stroll
Saturday, December 12, 2026 | 9 AM–12 PM
Hermosa Beach Pier → Manhattan Beach → Hermosa Beach Pier
5K fun run, walk or stroll benefiting Mychal's Learning Place
Official Event Information →
Only in the South Bay: Snowmen Made of Sand
There are holiday traditions that could happen almost anywhere.
Building a snowman barefoot on the beach isn't one of them.
Each December, the Hermosa Beach Sand Snowman Contest brings families and teams to the shoreline to create snowmen without a snowflake in sight.
There are sand snowmen with hats, scarves, sunglasses and increasingly ambitious accessories. Kids dig. Parents inevitably get recruited. And instead of frozen fingers and winter boots, there's sand between everyone's toes and the Pacific in the background.
It's hard to imagine a more South Bay version of a December tradition.
2026 EVENT DETAILS
Hermosa Beach Sand Snowman Contest
Saturday, December 5, 2026 | 9 AM–12 PM
Hermosa Beach
Official Event Information →
Unless, perhaps, you bring actual snow to the beach.
Manhattan Beach does that, too.
The Skechers Snow Park gives kids the fairly surreal experience of sledding on snow just steps from the ocean. And it's all part of the lead-up to one of the biggest holiday nights of the year.
The Night Everyone Heads to the Beach
Holiday fireworks night is one of those evenings people plan for all year.
Strand homes fill with friends and family, balconies become viewing parties, and people start making their way toward the beach before sunset. Manhattan Beach Boulevard closes to traffic and becomes part of the gathering, with families spreading out blankets as downtown fills in for the evening. Others claim a spot on the sand, bundled up for a December night beside the ocean.
Music and carolers add to the anticipation around the pier.
Then the Manhattan Beach Holiday Fireworks begin.
Thousands of people watch from the sand, the Strand and the surrounding neighborhoods as fireworks burst over the ocean with the illuminated pier below.
The tradition itself grew out of the local business community. What began as a way to bring people together and thank residents for supporting local merchants has grown into one of the biggest nights of the South Bay holiday season.
For the people hosting the same party every year or meeting friends at the same place on the sand, though, it's more than a fireworks show. It's one of those nights that finds its way onto the calendar before anyone has even made official plans.
Snow at the beach. Snowmen made of sand. Fireworks in December.
Holiday traditions look a little different here.
2026 EVENT DETAILS
38th Annual Skechers Manhattan Beach Holiday Fireworks
Sunday, December 13, 2026 | 3–8 PM
Manhattan Beach Pier & Downtown
Skechers Snow Park • Music & Carolers • Fireworks at 7 PM
Official Event Information →
One More South Bay Tradition, on the Water
Redondo Beach puts its own coastal spin on the season with the King Harbor Holiday Boat Parade.
As evening arrives, boats strung with lights and holiday decorations make their way through the harbor while families gather along the waterfront to watch.
Like so many of the traditions that make this season special, part of its charm comes from the setting. A holiday parade is familiar. A holiday parade floating through a marina beside the Pacific feels distinctly South Bay.
2026 EVENT DETAILS
King Harbor Holiday Boat Parade
Saturday, December 12, 2026
Paddle Craft Parade: 3:30–5 PM | Boat Parade: 5:30–7 PM
King Harbor Marina, Redondo Beach
Official Event Information →
The Traditions That Grow Up With You
After enough years in the South Bay, the holidays develop their own familiar rhythm.
When children are little, there are school costume parades and trick-or-treating on the walk streets. Then come Santa photos, the annual Christmas tree expedition and nights bundled up on the beach. As the kids get older, some traditions change and others somehow stay on the calendar.
Steve has experienced that while raising his own family in Hermosa Beach.
The children who once dressed up for Halloween grow into teenagers. Santa photos eventually disappear from the schedule. But families still stop by the tree lot. Friends still gather for fireworks. The pier still lights up. And every year, another group of young families begins making those traditions their own.
That's one of the things that makes living somewhere for a long time so meaningful. Places become connected to different stages of your life.
You remember the school where your children paraded in Halloween costumes. The streets where they trick-or-treated. The Christmas trees you somehow managed to get home. The friends you met downtown or on the Strand. The years you watched the fireworks with small children and the years you watched with those children suddenly much taller than you remembered.
And then, the following fall, it begins again.
Pumpkins appear on front porches. Homemade racers line up above the Manhattan Beach Pier. The holiday lights come on downtown. The tree lot opens. Someone builds an impressive snowman out of sand. Friends start making plans for fireworks night.
There are plenty of holiday events in the South Bay.
But the ones you return to year after year eventually become something more.
They become part of what it feels like to call this place home.
Local Perspective, Year-Round
Steven Mullins is a longtime Hermosa Beach resident and South Bay real estate advisor with Vista Sotheby’s International Realty. He brings a local perspective to buying, selling and understanding the communities that make the South Bay such a special place to call home.
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