The holiday season has many yearlong traditions surrounding this time. For some it’s decorating the Christmas tree while singing Christmas music, for others it’s lighting the menorah. No matter what holidays one might celebrate or might not celebrate, Main Street Saint Charles has the perfect event to get a person into the holiday mood. This event is Saint Charles Christmas Traditions, found on Main Street, which runs from Nov. 29 through Dec. 24.
“I go [to Saint Charles Christmas Traditions] almost every year with my family,” sophomore Mikaela Kavades said.
The main thing this event is known for is its character actors who hand out character cards. These characters, despite the event’s name, are not all Christmas characters, some characters pay homage to other religions and their holidays. The characters are found up and down the historic street.
“I like seeing the characters and the way they all interact with each other, but then I love looking into the little shops and like the bakeries stuff too,” Kavades said.
Many characters add an extra sparkle to the event by interacting with each other. While some main characters are stationary and have a set location, the carolers can freely roam the streets interacting with other characters between singing songs.
“As carolers a lot of us get to roam,” caroler character actor Shelly Minnella said. “So we’re actually privileged to get to interact with all of the characters and so we kind of have our own back and forth with all of them in our own special way. Scrooge is always very crabby, he doesn’t like the spirit of Christmas so our caroling group whenever we see him we announce we’re going to sing his favorite song and we sing Joy to the World. Just to kind of get under his skin and hopefully, let him feel the spirit of Christmas. It doesn’t work most of the time, but we try to spread the cheer to him.”
Not only do the characters try to spread holiday cheer to Scrooge but they try to spread it to everyone that they meet.
“Every year, I strive to have that one connection with at least just that one person on the street to know what I’m doing has made a difference for the better for them,” Minnella said. “We had some years, we’ll get through it and it’s like, okay, I don’t feel like we’ve had that moment yet, “Okay, guys, come on. We have two weeks left.” Yeah, I just strive to have that one. I want to at least have one moment and let most years we get multiple moments. But if you make a difference with just one person down there, you feel like you’ve just really helped spread the true meaning of Christmas.”
This year is extra special for Saint Charles Christmas Traditions with it being the event’s 50th Anniversary. This means that there are many additional activities.
“Christmas Traditions is completely free, but we do have a few ticketed events this year as well,” caroler character actor Shelly Minnella said. “Those are Holidays Around the World at the Foundry Art Center where you get a souvenir passport and you get to try holiday desserts from around the world and there is an exhibition about Christmas Traditions 50th Anniversary at the Foundry Art Center so from Nov. 1 through Dec. 21 they have a bunch of pictures and giant card hung all around. It’s just kind of a look back. You can see some of the costumes, and peek into some of the design process with mood boards by one of our costume designers. It’s just kind of a celebration of some of the behind-the-scenes of the past 50 years. There are some other events going on, there’s a naughty vs nice night that’s a ticketed event that’s a dance party with cookies and crafts and activities and there’s some other cool events.”
No matter who a person is, what religion they believe in or what holidays they celebrate they can be a part of Saint Charles Christmas Traditions. To learn more about the event you can go to their website or follow them on Facebook.
