Sacramento art galleries hosted small crowds of visitors during the last Second Saturday of the year. Many visitors took advantage of the smaller crowds to do Christmas shopping. Galleries and other businesses sold art, crafts, gift certificates and other items to Christmas shoppers. Festivities in Sacramento began earlier in the day with the annual Santa Parade. Thousands of children, along with their parents, lined the parade route. The parade started at the corner of 9th and I Streets and an anticipated crowd of over 25 thousand watched. The annual parade began at 10 a.m. and participants included marching bands, cheer squads, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, several floats, car clubs,

photographs by Barry Wisdom It wasn't the glitziest parade on the block, and more ads passed by than during a Talladega Superspeedway Nascar event, but the smiles that beamed from the shoulder-to-shoulder spectators at Sacramento's 2011 Santa Parade are the stuff that Christmas dreams are made of. Presented Dec. 9 by D&H Special Event Management, the capital city's 29th annual holiday tradition once again delighted young and old with an eclectic lineup of merry marching bands, a spate of sports cars, a bunch of Boy Scouts, a gaggle of Girl Scouts and a Santa in a pear tree. (OK – a Santa in a horse-drawn carriage.) Horses aside, chances are if it had an internal-combustion engine, it tr

Santa literally blew into town for today's Santa Parade. Though the winds were brisk and the air chilly, parade viewers stuck it out. Parade participants and viewers were all struggling with the wind and cold. Here's some scenes from this morning: SacPress Photos | Kati Garner

Tomorrow, November 25, the Sacramento's Tree Lighting festivities in Old Sacramento begins at 6:00 p.m. •The festivities include live performances, a visit from Father Christmas and much more. Visitors can join the fun and watch as Mayor Kevin Johnson flips the switch to light the tree at 6:30 p.m. • New this year, event-goers will be introduced to the Old Sacramento Theatre of Lights. At 6:30 p.m., a symphony of lights, sounds and visual effects will take the audience back to a time when the beloved poem The Night Before Christmas was first introduced in Sacramento in 1857. • The Old Sacramento Theatre of Lights will run two 10-minute light shows throughout the holiday season T