Busiest time of the year

~Cape Girardeau sets the mood for the season

with plenty of holiday activities

A car passes through the displays at the Cape County Park. (Aaron Eisenhauer)

It's the most wonderful time of the year, and Southeast Missourians can enjoy sights and activities to go along with the holiday season all month long.

The Cape Girardeau Parade of Lights will light up downtown in the holiday spirit tonight, weather permitting, and the Cape County Park's Holiday of Lights tour can be enjoyed from the warmth of a car every night in December.

"We've done it every year," said park supervisor Bruce Watkins. "It's a big tradition."

Watkins said the Holiday of Lights tour attracts 35,000 to 40,000 cars a year. Opening night and every weekend cars are bumper to bumper easing through the one-mile loop past mangers, snowman families and gingerbread colonies erected by local businesses and individuals.

"There are over 200 displays, and 11 of them are the original ones that first started," Watkins said.

The tour has been operating so long, he had to guess its age. He pinned it at 22.

"I might be off a year," he said.

The waiting list to get a display in the Holiday of Lights tour already has 17 entries for next year, but veterans get first choice for participation.

Several displays sit in the middle of the pond at Cape County Park North. (Aaron Eisenhauer)

"Vacancies are only created when someone has to drop out," Watkins said.

Houses on and around Lexington Avenue get dressed up for the season, including the house at 2206 Kent Street, which has an elaborate light display for the second year.

Experience "Christmas on Kent" as the signs out front say. They urge you to flip the radio dial to 88.7 FM to enjoy a coordinated light show that syncs up with Christmas music pumped into the vacant station.

The lights and music can only be seen and heard from 6 to 9 p.m. The station can be picked up in less than a one-mile radius.

For your own decorating needs, several forests have popped up in parking lots around Cape Girardeau. For a winter wonderland experience, Meier Horse Shoe Pines tree farm near Perryville, Mo., takes visitors on a horse and carriage ride through their land to find a tree.

They cut it, clean it up and shake the old needles out. A pine tree's newest needles grow in at the ends of branches so the old needles are often still in the middle, toward the trunk.

"That's why we clean them and shake them real good -- so you don't have to take those needles home," said owner Teresa Meier.

The carriage rides are available every Saturday and Sunday through the month and the cut lot and Christmas Shop are open from 1 to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday.

charris@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 246