Family Trip to View the Christmas Lights In Natchitoches

Saturday morning Tricia and I and Russ and Benjamin made a two hour and twenty minute drive to north central Louisiana to a town called Natchitoches.  The town is named after an Indian tribe and is where the movie, "Steel Magnolias" was filmed.  Most people think that New Orleans is the oldest city in Louisiana, but it is actually Natchitoches.  It was founded in 1714 and is actually the oldest settlement in all the states that were part of the old Louisiana Purchase.  Each year since 1927, the town of Natchitoches puts on a Christmas Festival with many, many lights, music, fireworks, and fun.  It is a good family atmosphere, and we wanted to attend.

Natchitoches (pronounced Nack-a-tish) is also known for their famous meat pies.  They are little fried pies that you eat with your hands that are filled with spicy meat.

Our first stop was to pick up ten meat pies.  We promptly destroyed those things, leaving nothing but crumbs in the box.  You've just got to be very careful that you don't burn your mouth as they can be very hot!

Most of the activity is centered on Front Street.  It is an old brick street that runs parallel to the Cane River featuring buildings with balconies with wrought iron railings.

My wife on Front Street

Looking down from Front Street, you can see the Cane River.  They had an ice skating rink set up and there was also a music stage where musicians were playing Swamp Pop and festival-goers were dancing.

We walked down to the edge of the River...  Russ and Benjamin had suspicious looks on their faces and I didn't feel comfortable standing that close to the water with those two hooligans.

Russ, Kyle, and Benjamin

So I quickly offered to take a photo of Tricia with her boys...

Up and down Front Street there are numerous shops to walk into and browse.  We saw antique stores, art displays, kitchen stores with samples, cypress-wood furniture makers, restaurants, and clothing stores.  I am not a big shopper - at all.  I must admit that going into the Kaffie-Frederick, Inc. General Mercantile was one of the highlights of the day.  It is Louisiana's oldest general store.

The old store has wooden stairs that creak when you walk on them.  It has an oval cut-out in the second story where you would open a trap door on the roof to allow sunshine in before electric lights were commonplace.  There is also an old elevator with counterbalances in the store that still works.

There were numerous old wooden bins filled with nuts and bolts and washers and most other things that you'd expect to find in a hardware store.  Anything you were looking for could be found in this store!  There was a neat old wooden bin with beautiful marbles for sale.  I like old timey marbles.  Almost bought some.  Much more character in here than in the "big box" hardware stores of modern times.

When you make your purchase, you get checked out on an old cash register that is the size of an SUV.

It was starting to get a little dark outside and you could see some of the lights starting to come on.  The other thing that was on was the "snow machine."  It was blowing soap bubbles all over Front Street.  We went into Papa's Bar and Grill and got a shrimp po-boy and a crawfish dish to eat.

People began packing the streets to get a good spot for the fireworks display at 7 PM.  We lined up against a barricade against the river to watch the spectacle.

The fireworks lasted for a full fifteen minutes accompanied by Christmas music and loud applause and whoops and hollers at the end.

We got in the car and began our trip home after a wonderful family outing.  Benjamin put on his play-list of old country music and we sang out loud for most of the trip home.  What a great day!