Tag: Holiday in Sainte Genevieve

Location: Historic Downtown Ste. Geneviève Attention shoppers: Follow the Cookie Crumb Trail! Sample cookies and collect recipes to get started on your own Christmas baking! Participating downtown shops will feature a different cookie recipe and have sample cookies for you to taste. Proceeds go to a local family in need. Just in time for Christmas! Read more…

Around 4th of July Admission is FREE Celebrate Ste. Geneviève’s Independence Day public gathering with music, speeches, and fireworks! At noon there is a traditional celebration with a church bell ringing, Pledge of Allegiance, patriotic speeches, and music, as well as an honor salute by various local organizations. That evening the local Muny Band will perform patriotic music, and at dusk, Fireworks will explode in Ste. Geneviève’s Pere Marquette Park. Read more…

Sainte Geneviève Holiday Christmas Festival Two Days of Music, History, and Celebration in Missouri’s Oldest Town Every first weekend of December, Sainte Geneviève transforms into what AAA Magazine has recognized as one of the top two Christmas celebrations in the entire Midwest. The annual Holiday Christmas Festival fills Missouri’s oldest town with a remarkable two-day program that spans more than 700 years of holiday music—from Renaissance sacred works to contemporary jazz—all performed in historic churches, galleries, and gathering spaces throughout the downtown district. With one of the state’s largest parades, elegant historical receptions, hands-on craft experiences, and French colonial holiday traditions, this free community celebration has grown over four decades into an event that draws visitors from across the region while remaining authentically rooted in Sainte Geneviève’s unique cultural heritage. A Festival Built on Generosity and Community Spirit Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the Holiday Christmas Festival is what it costs to attend: nothing. Nearly every event across the entire weekend—from world-class musical performances to craft workshops, from the parade to Santa photos, from historical programming to art exhibitions—is completely free. This generosity reflects Sainte Geneviève’s community values and the festival’s purpose: sharing the town’s historic character and holiday Read more…

La Guiannée – Where Sainte Geneviève’s 250-Year-Old New Year’s Eve Tradition Shares Deep Roots with Louisiana’s Rural Mardi Gras Through Ancient French Begging Songs Every New Year’s Eve for over 250 years, something extraordinary happens in Sainte Geneviève’s historic district that directly connects Missouri’s oldest French colonial town to the rural Mardi Gras traditions of Mamou and Iota, Louisiana. As darkness falls on December 31st, a troupe of costumed revelers—dressed in bizarre and archaic 18th and 19th-century attire, some masked in grotesque fashion reminiscent of Louisiana’s courirs de Mardi Gras—emerges to wander from business to business, home to home, singing an ancient French begging song that, according to fiddler and French music expert Dennis Stroughmatt, shares actual lyrics with the Iota Mardi Gras song. This isn’t coincidental similarity; it’s evidence of common cultural ancestry connecting these seemingly distant French traditions through centuries-old songs brought to North America by French colonists and preserved in isolated pockets where French culture remained strong enough to resist complete assimilation. “Bonsoir le maître et la maîtresse, et tous les gens de la maison” (Good evening master and mistress, and everyone who lives here too) begins the song that’s been chanted in Sainte Geneviève since the Read more…

AAA Magazine ranked the top Christmas towns in the Midwest.  Ste. Genevieve came in at #2! Party like its 1745 in the old French village of Ste. Geneviève where the new blends with old traditions during the Holiday Christmas Festival on the first full weekend in December. On Saturday, December 4, festivities kick off with a parade led by Santa, followed by shopping opportunities and open houses honoring French Christmas traditions. On Saturday afternoon, the Felix Vallé House State Historic Site, which dates to 1818, re-creates Le Réveillon—a traditional feast usually served after midnight Christmas Mass that includes 13 desserts honoring Jesus and his disciples. Then return to Ste. Geneviève on December 31 for La Guignolée, a French New Year’s Eve tradition. Follow costumed La Guignolèe revelers as they march to select sites in town and sing a beggar’s song for drinks and favors. The party continues at their final stop, the Centre for French Colonial Life, and participants welcome the New Year. Read more…