Salem So Sweet Ice Sculptures 2020

This past weekend was the 18th Annual Salem's So Sweet Chocolate & Ice Sculpture Festival. It's a great event to get people into local businesses with shopping discounts and food sampling. But the main reason I go is for the ice sculptures...and maybe a bit of free chocolate tasting.

This year there were 26 ice sculptures on display around the downtown Salem area. The weather was perfect...if you're an ice sculpture. It was around 30F with the occasional bitter cold wind. Due to that, I didn't walk around to see all the sculptures but I do have a few photos to share.

This Baby Yoda (or The Child if you prefer) looks like he may be a little younger than 50 with his chubby cheeks.

The thing you've been waiting for all your life...Godzilla on Ice! Okay, so it's more Godzilla in ice. Something about the way the spikes/plates on his neck was making me think of the House Stark banner.

Licensed properties actually are in the minority, but happen to be the ones I'm more excited to see. Most of the others are representing local businesses, like this one for Coon's Card & Gift Shop.

Here's a pair of large heart shaped glasses in front of Old Town Hall, which is the oldest surviving municipal structure in Salem, dating back to 1816 or 1817. It was also featured in Hocus Pocus as the exterior of the building where the big party takes place.

This Baby Groot was my favorite of the ones I saw.
It has an amazing likeness and the detail work on the face is crazy.

I happened to go earlier in the day and they were still working on getting some of the ice in place. There's a small chainsaw on the left and if you look in the truck, you'll see a couple of large blocks of ice.

When night rolls around, the sculptures are illuminated with colored lights. If you want to see more ice sculpture pics (lit and unlit), check out CreativeNorthShore on Facebook and DerekMillen on YouTube.

Oh! I almost forgot to mention, several of the Salem monsters were out and about on Saturday for Monster Hugs. During October, you can find them on the streets to take photos with for a donation. This time, they're donating all their tip money to Boston Childrens' Hospital. With it being so cold, I was pretty bundled up so I didn't take any pics with them but good on them for toughing it out for a good cause! You can find plenty of pics of them with one of my favorite monsters: Salem_Satan on IG.