Wonder walk: Bethalto tradition for longtime residents

A children’s choir performs seasonal favorites on Sunday during the 26th annual Bethalto Christmas Walk. A children’s choir performs seasonal favorites on Sunday during the 26th annual Bethalto Christmas Walk. Photo: David Blanchette|For The Telegraph Photo: David Blanchette|For The Telegraph Image 1 of / 6 Caption Close Wonder walk: Bethalto tradition for longtime residents 1 / 6 Back to Gallery

Charles Dickens couldn’t have imagined a more Victorian Christmas than the one held in Bethalto on Sunday during the community’s 26th annual Downtown Christmas Walk.

Hundreds of residents and visitors strolled the lamp- and candle-lit streets and Christmas Village, took horse-drawn carriage rides and enjoyed the sights, sounds and smells of a Victorian Christmas.

Bethalto resident Lucy Mann has taken part in the event for all of its 26 years

“It’s warm, it’s friendly, it’s having fun, there’s a lot of music and I love music,” Mann said. “This is really the first year I’ve dressed in Victorian garb and I really enjoy it. I’ve had some nice compliments.

“Our children always loved it and always used to go see Father Christmas and had pictures made. We rode the carriage rides and we used to wait for the special ones we wanted,” she recalled. “We’d climb up the wheels, which got harder and harder as the years went by. It’s a real sweet thing that people do, kind of fun, relaxing, and you come to a concert and listen to Christmas music. It’s a special time.”

Another Bethalto resident, Max Norris, also is a 26-year Christmas Walk participant.

“It’s a community event, from the smallest child to the oldest adult, and it brings the community together,” Norris said. “Even people who are strangers and come into our midst get involved. Some people have their own costumes, part of mine is borrowed and part of it is mine. We have a building that is nothing but costumes. It’s really a lot of fun.”

The youngest member of Norris’ family also is involved.

“Our granddaughter is quite taken with it, she’s 7 years old and has been doing it for three years,” Norris noted.

Other youngsters also donned period clothing and took an active role in the Christmas Walk, including 8-year-old Jaden Meyers, of Bethalto, who experienced the event for the first time dressed in clothing that children would have worn in mid-1800s England.

“I’m part of 4-H and you get to hand out coffee and hand out free ornaments,” Meyers said. “Some of the ornaments say ‘Peace on Earth,’ and they have snowmen on some of them.”

Visitors detected the smell of chestnuts roasting on an open fire around chestnut cooker Larry Rose, part of the Bethalto Kiwanis Club contingent, who said the warm treats “sort of taste like a baked potato, if you ask me.”

Some of the evening’s seasonal music was provided by a children’s choir in front of a large Christmas tree.

A much larger choir opened the evening’s festivities at the Bethalto First Baptist Church with the “Home for the Holidays” concert. More than 500 people listened and sang along to traditional and new Christmas tunes.

“For 26 years we’ve been doing this, and many of the choir members have been involved for two decades themselves,” co-choir director Jeff Allsman, of Bethalto, said. “It’s such a great way to kick off the Christmas Walk, a way to bring the community together, share and express that community spirit through our choir and orchestra.

“I don’t know that there is anybody who looks forward more to it every year than the folks who put it on. We just can’t wait,” he said. “We start looking at music in the spring, buying music in the summer, rehearsing in the fall. For some of us it’s almost a year-round type of thing. It’s almost like an extended family of folks that get together in the group and get to be a part of this and deliver the Christmas message, which is what our concert is all about.”

David Blanchette is a freelance reporter and photographer for the Telegraph.