Christmas Traditions

The Christmas event season is in full swing, and there's not enough time to do everything.  Today the calendar section of the newspaper's Website listed almost a dozen activities, but we narrowed it down to four; each in a different part of town.  After some discussion, this year Hubby Tony and I picked one that was new to us--the Historic St Charles Christmas Traditions Festival.

St. Charles is just across the Missouri River to the west of St. Louis. It was founded in 1765, and served as the state capitol from 1821-1826. Many of the buildings in the brick-paved historic district historic area date to that time.  The buildings have now been turned into shops and restaurants that attract people all year long, and large crowds come to the area for special events

The weather the past few days has been so unseasonable, it's hard to believe its almost the end of the year.  When we left the house after lunch it was 70 degrees.  I was wearing a tee shirt and jeans.  And Christmas socks, because it's the season.  I also brought along a Christmas applique fleece jacket, just in case it cooled off.  (I ended up carrying it.)

We made a couple of stops before we headed across the river to St. Charles.  The bridge across the Missouri river is down to one span, but traffic wasn't backed up too badly.  However, once we got off the highway traffic was stop and go, and looked like it was backed up all the way to the historic area.  Fortunately we're somewhat familiar with the area so instead of following the line of cars to the east, we drove north for about a mile and found a parking spot a couple of blocks from Main Street where all the action was.

Main Street was packed, and it was hard to walk down the sidewalk.  I wonder if the nice weather brought out extra people?  When I needed to use the bathroom I had to wait in line behind a dozen other ladies before I could take my turn.  I went into a spice shop to buy a couple of things; the shop was so full it was difficult to navigate.

After I finished in that shop we walked across the street and browsed in a bookstore.  When we came out  people were starting to line the streets for the Santa Parade.   We thought about doing the same thing but it would have taken the parade quite a while to reach us, so we set out in the opposite direction.  This area was quieter and the sidewalks were easy to navigate.  We stopped in the building where Santa was holding court, but he'd gone to be in the parade.  However, the storefront had a nice train display with multiple layouts that were fun to watch.

By this time the parade was over, and the sidewalks were getting crowded again.  Tony and I decided to leave.  On the way back to the car, though, we stopped at a church that had a display of gingerbread houses, and got to vote for our favorite.  And use the bathroom again; there was no line at this one.