It was hard not to assume something cool was happening.

The place: Center Court at Dartmouth, surrounding Santa's home base.

The event: A two-minute "flash mob" of caroling.

Flash mob events occur in public places and involve large groups of people doing something out of the ordinary for a brief amount of time.

Before 7 p.m. Friday night, the crowds began to linger, acting calm and unassuming. But the usual mall-goers started to get curious, doing a double-take at all the people.

Even mall security got a little suspicious.

Then, a lone voice rang: "Deck the halls with boughs of holly..."

In an instant, people donned Santa hats and sleigh bells and joined in.

The lone voice was that of Chad Micheal Peters, a Fairhaven resident who organized the event. Plans for the caroling flash mob showed up late November in a secret Facebook event.

Peters said organizing a flash mob was on his "bucket list," or a list of things to do before he died.

Among those in the crowd were Mattapoisett residents Heather Ruel and Caryn Coulombe.

"It was a blast," Ruel said. "I've always wanted to be a part of something like this. I just heard about it recently and thought it would be fun to join in."

Coulombe said acting natural before the singing was fun to be a part of.

"It was pretty easy, actually," she said. "People got a little curious. I've never done this before, but I had my Santa hat on and rang out the sleigh bells."

Did you see this too? Were you in it? Send your photos and story to erik@sippicanweek.com!