Today was one of our most-anticipated events of the year…going to downtown St. Charles, and walking up and down Main Street, taking part in the Christmas Traditions festival.

We stopped and saw the “Trains on Main” display this year…we haven’t seen it too often, so it was very fun.

For the first time, St. Charles had a gingerbread house contest…and we love looking at gingerbread houses!

I especially liked the gingerbread nativity.

After seeing the trains and houses, it was time for lunch. Usually, we go to Frankie Toco’s for pizza, but they had a 45 minute wait, so we tried a new place, Lewis and Clark’s. I’ve wanted to eat there since the first time we saw it, and I wasn’t disappointed. Their burger wasn’t as good as the Seamus burger, but it was still really good (especially the garlic mayo!)!

Then the real fun began…looking for Christmas characters, and collecting their cards. This year, the children got 28 out of 35 cards. Not the best year, but not the worst either, and the weather wasn’t great, so I call it a win.

We were a little disappointed that we didn’t get to see one of our favorite characters, Jack Frost, but we did see evidence of his work!

We love listening to the Victorian carolers.

And seeing the drum and fife corps.

And the architecture is beautiful!

I also love all of the old-style shop signs.

We stayed so long, we even got to see the Christmas lights as it began to get dark…a very fun and busy day!