Christmas Traditions in St. Charles, Missouri

St. Charles, Missouri, has many traditional yearly rituals, but the best one of all comes at the end of every year with "Christmas Traditions" downtown. Every Saturday and Sunday around noon, the locals and tourists meet on the streets of historic St. Charles to experience a "Storybook Christmas" with characters in full costumes that never break their character roles. They speak in accents and some of them, like the angels and fairies, sparkle like glitter from the pages of our long lost storybooks.

I took my son to the event the first weekend in 2009 to see the Christmas Parade, and while he didn't quite understand it, he gleamed in amazement at the unique environment and all he had to gaze upon. He watched intently as the Santa Parade marched through the streets and horses pulled fantasy style carriages fit for a princess.

At the Gazebo on Main Street the opening Ceremony sported a jolly Santa and content Mrs. Claus who arrived in a horse drawn carriage. He listened and tapped along to The Lewis & Clark Fife & Drum Corps and watched people on the streets as they gathered to look beyond the crowd and catch a glimpse of the Parade. It seemed to be over before it started, but soon tons of holiday characters were gathered together singing and reciting lines from their scripts.

After the show was over, the characters disbursed and the children were sent on a quest to acquire a collection of cards from each character. We strolled through the streets trying to collect all of the cards, but were unable to get one from every character. We did enjoy meeting each person and having our picture taken with them. He met many well-known characters like Tiny Tin, Mr. Scrooge, the Train Conductor, Mrs. Clause and Santa Clause and much more.

As the event died down and people disassembled from the crowd, we moved toward the restaurants and stores and did a little window-shopping. We met some locals and some travelers and stopped to listen to some singing carolers. There was so much to do and the weather was unusually beautiful. Unlike a typical winter day, the warm weather was somewhere in the 70's. It was more like Christmas in July. Some of the people who attended were a bit disappointed that there wasn't a snow to christen the event. Personally, I was glad for my 2 year old that we didn't have to wear hats and gloves and bundle up or cut our adventure short due to harsh weather.

SEE A SLIDE SHOW OF THE MAGNIFICENT EVENT FROM OUR LENS

To see more about this traditional event, visit the Christmas Traditions Web site here.