Did you know Morristown has its own Christmas-themed pub crawl tradition?

Since 2006, the Morristown Santa Pub Crawl has been occurring in town around the holidays and continues to grow in popularity, according to event co-organizer Peter Williams.

"Our home grown event has quickly become the social event of the season," said Williams, of Denville.

Williams and fellow Denville resident and organizer Steve Baybrook started the Morristown Santa Pub Crawl as a fun excuse to revel in the spirit of the holidays. "When we started the crawl, we were looking for an excuse to buy and wear Santa suits and by golly we made up a great excuse to do it," Williams said.

Williams anticipates this year's Pub Crawl, which will mark the fifth anniversary of the event, to possibly be the biggest one yet. He has reason to believe that it will be; the Facebook event page for the Morristown Santa Pub Crawl had nearly 600 people listed as attending as of Wednesday night, with only more room to grow as Saturday, Dec. 18 approaches.

In the event of inclement weather, participants are encouraged to come out regardless.

"Last year, 250 people signed up [for the event], but there was a blizzard that day of over a foot," Williams said. "One hundred-fifty Santas still made it out despite the conditions. All that snow made for a magical evening."

The event requires all attending the event to dress up as either Santa or Mrs. Claus, as to promote solidarity within the group. In fact, a prize will even be awarded at the end of the night to the person "most likely to succeed as a mall Santa."

"Like zebras in the wild using natural camouflage to appear bigger than they are, the Christmas spirit is multiplied and spectators dazzled when there is a uniform sea of red velvet and white fur, as opposed to a random collection of characters," Williams said. "It helps to stress the importance of the group and not the individual."

Other than that, Williams said that there are no other guidelines, with the exception of "being polite and leaving nothing behind but Christmas cheer."

The Fifth Annual Morristown Santa Pub Crawl will begin at Sona Thirteen from 6 to 7 p.m. From there, the group will move to The Office, The Famished Frog, Grasshopper off the Green, George & Martha's and finally finishing at Hennessey's.

For more information on the Fifth Annual Morristown Santa Pub Crawl, visit the event's official website at http://www.awesomelikeme.com.