Natchitoches Christmas Festival 2018

Saturday evening, November 24, 2018,  my husband John and I went with two of our adult children, Christie and Brandt Underwood, to Natchitoches, LA, to see the Christmas lights. The city had blocked off the downtown street, which was packed with people.

Some features of the beautiful old city full of joyful visitors could not be caught by our cellphone cameras, or by any camera. It isn't possible to show the ancient brick streets, and no picture can show the joy of the happy crowd.

After a short walk, we arrived at a glorious canopy of multicolored lights, topped by a large red fleur de lis. Christie captured an interesting
shot.
 Maglieaux's,  one of our favorite Natchitoches restaurants, is located  next to the pretty lights. Saturday night, a live band was playing on the sidewalk with tables of patrons loving the concert. We walked to the inside of the restaurant and arranged to be seated outside after a short wait.

While we waited we had mini meat pies, which were the best Natchitoches meat pies I've ever tasted. We also had spinach-artichoke dip. Our foods included shrimp etouffee,  corn bisque, a hamburger, and a shrimp poboy. All the food was delicious. Oh, they gave us some excellent fried okra as lagniappe. The bowls of shrimp etouffee were so big and the servings were so generous that we couldn't eat all of it.

We sat outside next to the Cane River, which had an abundance of lighted objects along the river banks. Other years when I've gone there, I rode with groups of  people, such as Sunday School classes, along the streets to look at these, but this night we enjoyed other attractions. The blocked-off streets were full of people walking up and down. No one seemed to notice the sudden drop in temperature. Wide-eyed children, happy lovers, and many other sorts of people seemed to have enough warmth in their hearts to keep them warm.

From the outdoor court, we were able to see the fireworks, a magnificent display with more intensity than others I've seen in the past.  When we finished eating, we walked down the main street.

Everywhere we looked we saw something pretty or

something interesting. I loved the lighted renditions of reindeer next to the big light canopy.

Some of the shops were open. Christie bought some fleur de lis cookie cutters to place on a Christmas tree. 

We enjoyed seeing the three horses with long buggies taking visitors for rides. 

The loveliness of the full moon surpassed all the man made lights. I tried to photograph it as it rose above the concert given by Chicken on the Bone band. 

Go to my author Facebook page,  Mary Lou Cheatham, Author to see some more pictures and my Facebook page, Mary Cooke (MaryLouCheatham Cooke) has a few more pictures.

(Natchitoches is pronounced NAK uh tesh.) Special thanks to Brandt for driving us. John and I snored all the way home from Natchitoches to Shreveport. Oh, the joy of being a senior citizen!

Christie purchased a Natchitoches Christmas shirt:

Here's a little history lesson copied from a Bing Search Page:

Natchitoches is a small city and the parish seat of Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, United States. Established in 1714 by Louis Juchereau de St. Denis as part of French Louisiana, the community was named after the indigenous Natchitoches people.