The holiday season is upon us and that means pageants and festivities all-month long on St. Croix, beginning this coming weekend with the annual St. Croix Boat Parade Saturday and the Crucian Christmas Parade Sunday.
Carrying on a tradition begun in 1996, boats decked out in holiday lights will sail the Christiansted harbor this coming Saturday evening. Festivities begin around 5:30 p.m. on the Christiansted boardwalk, where Santa Claus is scheduled to make an appearance.
The boat parade should start at 6 p.m. Fireworks, sponsored by Hovensa, will follow the end of the parade when all boaters are clear of the parade route.
Many stores will stay open late, with some reopening after the parade for late holiday shopping.
Afterwards, Christiansted will keep hopping when the Crucian Christmas Festival organization holds a “festival mini-village” in Christiansted’s Christian “Shan” Hendricks Vegetable Market. There will be food, drink and entertainment there from 8 p.m. to midnight, Saturday and Sunday.
On Sunday the Crucian Christmas Festival officially begins with the traditional old-time parade, beginning at 7 p.m. The marchers will work their way down King Street, then up Company Street to the mini-festival village in the historical town vegetable market.
Sunday at 3 p.m. four girls and four boys, ages 9-11, will vie for crowns and tiaras at Juanita Gardine Elementary School in the St. Croix Christmas Festival Prince, Princess and Duchess pageant.
The next weekend is all about calypso, with the adult Calypso Monarch elimination round scheduled for Dec. 17 at a time and place to be determined and Junior Calypso Contest the evening of Dec. 19 at Island Center.
After opening presents Christmas morning and playing with them all afternoon, St. Croix residents can bring the kids to a Christmas concert in Frederiksted’s Buddhoe Park at 7 p.m. to be regaled with gospel singing and entertained by costumed cartoon characters.
The big Miss St. Croix Pageant will be the day after, on Boxing Day, 5 p.m. at Island Center.
For a couple of days after Christmas it will be quiet, until the festival village and carnival rides open in Frederiksted the evening of Dec. 30.
The ribbon to the village will be cut at 6 p.m. The festival’s opening tramp is supposed to begin at 7 p.m. and travel from the Post Office to the festival village and a small fireworks display is scheduled at 7:45 p.m. on Frederiksted Beach.
As always, there will be food, live music and carnival rides every night in the festival village until the end.
The climax will be the all-day adult parade Jan. 8 in Frederiksted. But the fun and excitement continues the next and last day, with boat races at noon on the Frederiksted waterfront and more rides and music in the village until after midnight.
For information on all the pageant contestants, details of the festival schedule and much more, go to www.stxfestival.com.
