Christmas on Main Street

So Brian will probably remind me every chance he gets that it very well may have been the coldest day possible to take the boys down to Main Street in St. Charles, but it was well worth it! We had wanted to go last year, but the icy weekends prevented that so I wanted to make sure we got it in early this year.

Every year St. Charles puts on "Christmas Traditions" where Christmas characters stroll up and down Main Street in costume. What was so neat was that they were really in character, too. Each character that we saw had a perfect accent and was so entertaining with stories and activities to help the kids learn about who they were. And, for my collecting-crazy Elliott, they each gave out cards that had the character's picture on the front and background information on the back along with what number out of 29 they were. Elliott was a little disappointed that we didn't get all 29!

Ethan started getting into it, too, after we stopped at Little Hills and sat in the heat drinking hot chocolate for a while - he was not a happy icy camper before that! I think their favorites were the Master of Revels (he played jokes on them), Jack Frost (he teased Ethan about having a wretched hot beverage), and the Sugar Plum Fairy (who we searched for all over). I think they also liked the Nutcracker Prince and remembered a little of what he told them, because the next day we were in Walmart and they saw some Nutcrackers and started talking about them and looking for the Mouse King!

Oh, and I was so excited to find out that Frontier Santa is inspired by Mr. Edwards' visit in Little House on the Prairie - I know Erin will remember that with me!

This was so much fun and definitely one of my most favorite Christmas outings. I highly recommend making the trip down there - especially if you have kids!