Christmas on The Hill 2014

Today was one of our favorite days of the Christmas season…Christmas on The Hill!

The first thing we always do when we get there is look for all the nativities. It doesn’t matter how many times we see them, we still marvel at their beauty, and the way they tell the Christmas story!

We stopped by The Hill’s version of a Christmas market. There were items for sale, crafts for the children, and something new this year…salsiccia. It wasn’t the salamites we’ve grown accustomed to over the years, but it was still delicious!

There was Christmas spirit everywhere!

And Italian spirit everywhere, too, of course!

Bunnys’ favorite part of Christmas on The Hill is listening to La Befana tell her story at Gelato di Riso.

I love looking at St. Ambrose, the neighborhood church…it’s so beautiful!

Any visit to The Hill is fun, but Christmas on The Hill is even better!

Christmas Traditions 2014

On Sunday, we made our annual trip out west to St. Charles for the Christmas Traditions festival. It’s the first time we’ve ever been there for the opening weekend, and it’s also the 40th anniversary of the festival, so there was a lot of extra fun to be had!

After an incredible lunch in the old vault at Llywelyn’s Pub, we stopped by the gingerbread village. As always, there were many amazing creations…I’m constantly surprised what people can make with food! We saw historic homes, a hobbit hole, Snoopy, Who-ville, and Olaf…something for everybody!

To celebrate the festival’s 40th anniversary, 40 ornaments were placed around Main Street and Frontier Park to represent the different Christmas legends you can find at the festival. We saw 30 of the ornaments before we had to go…it was a fun addition to our annual character hunt!

Speaking of hunting, we were reminded of this year’s Stl250 cake hunt when we saw the First State Capital cake, currently located on the sidewalk, instead of the backyard where we first saw it. There was something charming about seeing Father Christmas walk past it:

The children wanted to stop by the gazebo for a group picture:

Not only were we there for opening weekend, we were also there early enough in the afternoon to see the parade, which was another first for us. It was fun to watch the legends strolling down the brick street, and hearing the fife and drum corps play.

Even though Santa has no place in our home, it was fun seeing the Santas from around the world carrying their countries’ flags!

We collected cards from all the characters we could find. We got 29 of the 36 cards, and we saw all but one other character in the parade (I don’t think Civil War Santa was there at all on Sunday). This may have been our best year yet, and we saw all of our favorites, including the hard-to-find Master of Revels, the incorrigible Jack Frost, and Santa Lucia!

There was yet another special activity just for opening weekend…a Christkindlmarkt. For this event, there was a bonus character, the Christkind, who taught the children the first verse of “Silent Night” in German. While I was disappointed with the market itself, I was glad to see the traditional red and white striped tents, and the Christkind was an excellent addition to the cast of characters.

There is always so much to see and do in St. Charles, and we never get tired of the Christmas sights!

We make up our own cast of characters, so it was fitting that the children made their own trading card!

As always, this is one of the most looked forward to events of the Christmas season for our family, and with all of the special events going on, it was even more fun than we had expected!

2014 St. Louis Scottish Games

Today we took the whole clan on the train to Forest Park to attend the St. Louis Scottish Games. This was our second time going, so we knew what to expect, and how much fun we were going to have!

We met some really nice people!

As was the case last year, the children’s area was a huge hit with our bairns!

We made it by the British car show this time…I loved the WWII vehicle!

We saw some of the athletics, but not much.

And just a bit of the highland dancing.

We also saw some other demonstrations.

The children all loved the dog parade!

Not to mention the parade of tartans…we even witnessed a proposal, which was unbelievably sweet!

The children also loved visiting the tent of each clan and getting their “passports” stamped, while learning a bit about the clan.

And I, of course, loved the pipers!

I also loved all the Scottish pride everywhere!

It was a great cultural event, and I think the Scottish games are now part of our family’s permanent calendar. The children are already talking about going back next year!

Belleville200–The Beach Boys!

Tonight The Beach Boys played on the Belleville town square. The crowds were amazing…I think the entire town (and some of the surrounding area, as well), was there!

It was so much fun to hear them play…and I loved watching my children dance along!

This was the biggest event of the Belleville200 celebrations, but the weekend is just beginning…there’s plenty more to come!

Old Belleville Street Fair

A (fairly brief) storm meant that we weren’t able to spend as much time at the Old Belleville Street Fair (or, “Alt Belleville Strassenfest,” if you will), as we had planned, but we did still go down and walk around. We missed a lot of the demonstrations, as well as the tours, but we still got to see a lot of cool stuff, most of which we had never noticed before!

I was really excited to see the Garfield Street Saloon. My understanding is that it will eventually be a museum dedicated to the beer brewing history (Hello Stag beer!), that is such an integral part of Belleville’s history, and that was already evident, from the displays inside, to the brewing demonstration outside:

Something you don’t often notice in old neighborhoods is that there is writing on some of the bricks on the brick streets…fascinating!

The old houses (and learning who lived and/or worked there), were the best part of the fair. As a bonus, many of them had demonstrations outside, such as carpenters, brick masons, and even musicians (I do love an accordion!):

There was even a secret passage!

Belleville is a wonderful city with a fascinating (and long!) history. I’m so glad that our city’s 200th birthday celebration has created events that help us learn and appreciate that history!

Art on the Square 2014

Today was Art on the Square day! Belleville always looks so pretty during the art fair:

This year, there were cool cut-out stands placed all around the town square. Unfortunately, most of them were too tall for the children to reach, but they still look cool on their own!

I love watching the artists that are doing demonstrations. It’s fascinating to see how intent they are, and how much they love their work!

Of course, we stopped by to see our favorite artist, Mark Hurd, and buy a small print to add to our collection. Someday, we’re going to commission him to do a piece of one of our favorite places in St. Louis.

There were two artists from Belleville’s sister city of Paderborn, Germany, doing demonstrations. I thought this was a really cool way to celebrate Belleville’s 200th birthday…it’s certainly not something they’ve done before!

There are so many different kinds of art to see. I’ll be the first to admit, I don’t “get” them all, and certainly they aren’t all my taste. But, I love that we get to see it all, and talk to some of the artists. I also love that the children are getting exposed to so much different art. It’s interesting to see how their tastes have changed over the years (or stayed the same!), and what catches their eyes that we might not have noticed.

There are many reasons I love Belleville, but Art on the Square is definitely the thing Belleville does best!

Christmas at the Old Courthouse

We went to the Old Courthouse in downtown St. Louis for the first time today. We had intended to go in December, because on the Saturdays last month, they had different activities highlighting what Christmases in St. Louis were like at different point in history. We didn’t make any of those events, but we did finally get there today, for the “1764 12th Afternoon Ball.”

There was music and dancing:

Examples of food from the time:

The crowns for the King and Queen of Mardi Gras:

And displays looking at different Christmas traditions:

We also looked through the galleries, and climbed to the top of the courthouse, too, but I’ll save all of that for another time. For now, though, I’m glad we finally went, and am looking forward to going back!

St. Charles Christmas Traditions 2013

Today was the big day…we made the trip out west for our favorite annual Christmas event–St. Charles Christmas Traditions!

We went to a new restaurant for lunch…Llywelyn’s Pub. I think this is my favorite place that we’ve gone in all of the years we’ve been going to St. Charles. The restaurant is in the old First National Bank building, which is really cool. There are even tables in the vaults! The food is really good…I had a burger with bacon, onions, and havarti cheese (genius!), and colcannon on the side.

After lunch, we began our walk. I love looking at all of the shop windows, signs, and decorations. You really feel like you’re stepping back in the past!

For the second year, there were also gingerbread houses to see. I loved the Tower Bridge, and the person in charge of the voting (who happened to be British), was impressed that Turkey actually knew the name of the bridge, and didn’t just call it “London Bridge.” I also really like the Toys for Tots display…it was so detailed!

Of course, we hunted for Christmas characters. We got cards from 26 of the 40 that are participating this year, and saw another three of them as they went by. Sadly, we didn’t see the Master of Revels at all (my personal favorite), but we did see Jack Frost, which is almost as good.

All of the buildings are so beautiful, too…it’s such a charming town!

There’s a part of me that dreads when this day comes every year, because it’s over so quickly, but I’ll spend all of the next year looking forward to that day when we go back, and do the whole thing all over again! In the meantime, though, I can enjoy this souvenir Ryan bought me from my favorite little English shop!

Christmas on The Hill 2013

Today we made our annual trip to The Hill neighborhood of St. Louis to see the nativity scenes, hear La Befana tell her story, and eat salamites. This was an especially good day to be there, because today is the commemoration of Ambrose, the saint for whom the church that is the center of Hill life was named.

This year, while we were at Gelato Di Riso for the La Befana storytelling, we actually bought some gelato. Even though it was incredibly cold today, the gelato was a very welcome treat. I definitely want to go back there in the future (although, perhaps next time it will be when it’s warmer)!

St. Louis Scottish Games

This morning, I took my lads and lassies down to Forest Park to check out the St. Louis Scottish Games. We’d never been before, but since we’re wrapping up British history and starting Scottish history, I thought it would be the perfect event to attend. There was so much to see and do…we had a fun (and exhausting!) time!

There was great stuff for kids, including a play area and getting “passports” stamped by all of the different clans in attendance:

There was a sword-fighting demonstration (Turkey’s favorite part):

And sheep-herding:

There was a dog parade, which was very popular with the children (especially Chickadee), and I learned that there are a lot more breeds of Scottish dogs that I had imagined!

There was also a parade of tartans, with representatives from all of the clans there (Clan Ferguson was the honored clan of the event):

Of course there was food. We tried fish and chips (naturally), Cornish pasties, a Scottish soda called Irn Bru, a deep-fried Mars bar, and, for those of us of legal drinking age (me), the special beer brewed by Schlafly (Eighty Shilling), just for this event. We did not try the haggis, though!