Rudolph will invade the Charleston town square tomorrow for the annual “Christmas in the Heart of Charleston.”

Other celebration features include a parade, Santa house, cookie house and live music.

A reindeer will come from the Tim Ellsworth Reindeer Production, based out of Donaldson.

“It’s really fascinating,” said Karen Petersen, Charleston’s co-chair special events/tourism supervisor. “They’re very calm creatures, actually.”

Petersen has been involved with “Christmas in the Heart of Charleston,” for two years, but the holiday event has been around for about 13 years. It begins at 5 and ends at 7 p.m.

Kicking off the celebration is the parade, which begins at 5 p.m.

“The parade will start as close to 5 p.m. as possible. It goes around the square once, so it’s fairly short,” Petersen said. “We have limited entries, because everyone in (the) front of the parade runs into the tail end of the parade.”

The holiday parade will include carriages and sleighs, but starts off with a fire engine and ends with Santa. Eastern President Bill Perry will be the parade’s grand marshal, and will be joined by his wife Linda.

Other parade features include cheerleaders, Lincoln Log Cabin re-enactors, local school bands and usually Boy or Girl Scouts, Petersen said.

After the parade goes around the square, Santa arrives at the Santa house, which will be located in the Charleston Transitional Facility office.

“There, kids can go in and sit on Santa’s lap, tell them their wishes and get a Polaroid picture taken with Santa. Everything is free,” Petersen said. “So you can get the kids’ picture with Santa for free, (and) then walk over to the cookie house, which is going to be held in the other Charleston Transitional Facility office.”

The Transitional Facility Office is located at 521 Seventh St. Also within the building will be performing musicians. Thus far, the United Methodist Church Handel Choir will be performing as well as the Marcueake Jazz Orchestra.

Bryce Peake, bass player for the Marcueake Jazz Orchestra, is excited about performing at this year’s “Christmas in the Heart of Charleston” celebration.

“Last year, the pianist and I played as a jazz duo,” Peake said. “And this year, we had been talking for a while about putting together a 10-piece big band and we decided that it was just crazy enough.”

The Marcueake Jazz Orchestra will play a 45 minute set, comprised of Christmas music in which he, as well as the band’s tenor player, arranged.

“When you have a 10-piece group, there’s a little more than just playing the melody,” Peake said. “We both basically took one of the traditional Christmas carols and then took something a little different. Like, I did, “Let It Snow,” “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” as well as an arrangement of “A Chipmunk Christmas.”

The performance, like all other events, is free to the public.

“We do it for free for the Charleston area cause, number one, it’s not much of a time commitment for us and, number two, it’s just fun to get out there in the community and be a part of it,” Peake said. “It’s proven to be for the one rehearsal we’ve had. It’s going to be a really fun band to play in.”

As far as the band’s unique name goes, it’s a combination of the first five letters of Peake’s last name and the first five letters of tenor player, Josh Marcus’s name.

Also inside the Transitional Facility Office, will be a cookie house.

“We’ve got volunteers who will put out plates of cookies and will be serving hot chocolate and the hot chocolate’s donated by local restaurant, ‘What’s Cookin.'” Petersen said.

Outside, members of the Knights of Columbus will be roasting chestnuts over an open fire.

“They’re pretty popular, so they’ll go kind of fast,” Petersen said.

There will also be free carriage rides around the square. Six carriages will be provided.

“We’re going to have lines forming for the carriage rides on the inside of the square, near the courthouse, Petersen said. “Then the carriages will be zipping around the square, dropping off a family and then picking up another one and go back around the square again.”

In various storefront windows, there will be live action holiday displays. In the windows of Ruffalo Cody, the Jacqueline Bennett Dance Center dancers will be performing scenes from “The Nutcracker.”

“They have the biggest windows of all, so Jackie Bennett uses those for her play to perform, and it’s always a huge hit. People always just stand there and watch,” Petersen said.

Also among activities will be a gingerbread house contest.

“They are usually dropped off at Jackson Avenue Coffee by 5 p.m. Nov. 30, the Friday before the Saturday event,” Petersen said. “They are displayed inside (the) Ealy’s Appraisals window. They’re nice enough to donate the space for a while, and we have judges come in and pick their favorites.”

Aside from activities spicing up the Charleston atmosphere with Christmas, visual displays will be set up as well around downtown Charleston.

“A lot of the stores either paint their windows by themselves, or if they’re not able to or they don’t want to, we ask if we can decorate their windows,” Petersen said. “And the stores that have enclosed windows, we ask them if that’s where we can put our live action window displays.”

Also standing around for the festivities will be costumed characters for children’s amusement. Among characters will be a Rudolph, Grinch, two elves and possibly Cookie Monster and Elmo.

“It’s hard to maneuver in those costumes. It’s hard to have them walk around the parade. If they want to, we’ll let them,” Petersen said. “But normally, we position a couple of them on each side of the square, so when they kids are around, they’re stationary, so the kids can run up and say hello.”

One character will entertain children in line as they wait to sit on Santa’s lap.

“It’s nice that people can bring their kids to see Santa and it doesn’t cost anything,” Petersen said. “So the kids that don’t normally get to do something, it’s just a nice, free event for everybody.”