Nine Flags Festival
Nacogdoches, Texas

When: mid-November - early December

Where: Events take place at several Nacogdoches venues, including the Fredonia Hotel and Convention Center, the Sterne-Hoya House Museum, the Visitors' Center and downtown stores.

Enjoy a nostalgic, Nacogdoches-style Navidad in the oldest town in the Lone Star state.

Events: If you've filled up on too much fruit cake and eggnog this holiday season, you can burn off calories at the Jingle Bell Run, a 5K sprint through the streets of Nacogdoches, while those who prefer a slower pace can promenade in a 3K walk. Promising Lance Armstrongs can pedal to first place in the Tour due Nac, a 7.8-mile and 53-mile bike race.

The welcome mat will be out at a number of Nacogdoches venues during the holiday season. Even Scrooge would enjoy the Dickensian delights at Christmas in the Victorian Parlor, a tour of the Sterne- Hoya House Museum and Library, and Millard's Crossing Historic Village, which offers a sentimental look at the most wonderful time of the year with re-enactors in period costume roaming about the grounds while children ride a mini-choo choo, sip cocoa as storytellers weave tall tales in front of a crackling fireplace inside an old log house, and make corn cob dolls at the Millard-Lee boarding house. The president's residence at Stephen F. Austin State University opens its doors to visitors during the annual tour of homes, and festival-goers can celebrate the reason for the season at the First United Methodist Church of Nacogdoches Christmas Open House, where families can flock around a live Nativity scene and listen to a choir sing Christmas carols.

As the calendar creeps closer to Christmas Day, browse for bargains during Holiday in the Pines at the Fredonia Hotel and Convention Center, and savor the samples of wassail as you shop for stocking stuffers at downtown stores during Wassail Fest, where wassail recipes go head-to-head in a holiday competition.

A menagerie of musical events will make your holiday merry. Over the course of the festival, there are choir concerts, the Texas Old-Time Fiddler's State Championship Contest, and "White Christmas," 'I'll Be Home for Christmas" and other holiday classics make up the musical roster at Christmas at the Movies, which is held at the Visitors' Center.

Visions of sugar plums will dance in your head after you see the Gingerbread Homes for the Holidays contest, and you can top off your Yuletide season at the Festival of Trees-- nine Noel-themed Christmas trees, each representing one of the town's nine flags.

Children's Activities: Children's faces light up like the three million illuminated bulbs that decorate downtown as they sit on Santa's knee for a souvenir photo during the annual lighting ceremony, which will have an array of activities to entertain pint-sized visitors while parents peruse for purchases among the many vendor booths. Knowing that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, Saint Nick will also stop by the Fredonia Cafe at the Fredonia Hotel in early December, and Texas tots can tell the jolly old elf their Christmas wishes in between bites of bacon and eggs.

Kids can kick off the month of December downtown on the square with an afternoon arts and crafts, games and story telling time, followed by a parade and a potpourri of pyrotechnics.

For more information:
• visit www.nineflagsfestival.com