A holiday tradition that has been around for half a century continues to bring the community together and spread holiday cheer. St. Charles’ Christmas traditions take place one month out of every year on Main street. This event offers face to face interactions with certain holiday personalities such as, chimney sweepers, sugar plum fairies, and characters from the nutcracker. These characters share songs, stories, and carry trading cards with them to hand out. The Christmas Traditions was first traced back to 1975 as a small festival for the merchants and residents of mainstreet, these people found themselves around bonfires and singing carols, but it wasn’t until around the early 1980’s when the event began to expand out to more people. These present day traditions still continue and during this time businesses began to attract a lot of traffic from shoppers. April’s on Main, Grandma’s Cookies, and the other establishments on main street work hard to ensure the happiness of their customers.
Aprils on Main’s Business owner April Moxley first officially opened the store on June 1, 2014. A lot of businesses on main street struggle during their first few years of starting off but Moxley was able to expand on only her second year of opening and extended to make a furniture store next door, known as Designs By Ave. The traffic in Old St. Charles begins to increase during the Festival of Little Hills in August all the way to Christmas Traditions in December. Not only does Aprils on Main decorate the trees in their store, they also do in-home consultations for other businesses and houses. April Moxley spoke on how she continues to try and attract new customers during the holiday season.
“I try to attract new customers by getting in new merchandise everyday, I never buy the same thing twice, I go for the stuff that nobody else has around here”, Moxley says. “We have a great facebook page and we’re always putting teasers and things like that out there.” The Christmas Traditions in Old St. Charles brings the community together and contributes to making an environment for people to come out and shop. If it’s through the characters and their songs or the businesses and their products, it creates an event that shares the holiday spirit and recognizes main street for its historic value.
