Lebanon's Victorian Holiday Festival celebrated its 20th season in 2012.  Lebanon is a community steeped in history.  Lebanon is the only city in Illinois where famous British author Charles Dickens stayed overnight.  While visiting St. Louis, Dickens (only 30 years of age at the time) expressed a desire to see an American prairie before returning east. Finding no shortage of men wishing to accommodate the great author, a group of  men from St. Louis set out with Dickens to visit the Looking Glass Prairie, a trip of some 30 miles into Illinois. During the trip the entourage stayed at the Mermaid House, an inn in Lebanon built in 1830 by retired sea captain Lyman Adams.  Dickens described the hotel in American Notes: "In point of cleanliness and comfort it would have suffered by no comparison with any village alehouse, of a homely kind, in England."   Dickens awoke early the next morning and walked about Lebanon before returning with the other gentlemen to St. Louis to board a riverboat for his trip back eastward via the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. 

The following year, 1843,  Dickens wrote his famous A Christmas Carol-A Ghost Story of Christmas.  Old local folklore believes Dickens received some of his inspiration for the story from his stay in Lebanon.  170 years later, that folklore remains, albeit most likely not true.  Every Christmas season, Dickens A Christmas Carol is performed at Lebanon's Looking Glass Playhouse to sold out audiences.  Tickets go on sale beginning November 22nd.  Call the Looking Glass Playhouse at 618-537-4962 or visit their website at www.lookingglassplayhouse.com.  Performances this year are Friday, Saturday and Sunday, December 7, 8 & 9, 2012 at 7:30pm with an additional Sunday matinee at 2:00pm.  Don't miss it!

The Victorian Holiday Festival began as a Friday and Saturday evening event in 1993.  In 2009 the event expanded to include activities on Sunday afternoon.

The downtown merchants open on Friday and Saturday at 10am and remain open until 9pm each of those evenings.  They are open on Sunday from noon until 5pm.

At 4:30pm on Friday and Saturday, cars begin to disappear from the brick street.  The real excitement begins at 5pm on Friday (and again on Saturday) when the store windows go dark at every shoppe.  The streetlights go dark, too.  Horse-drawn carriages arrive at the Visitors Center (221 W. St. Louis Street).  Carriage rides take up to ten passengers on a cheerful ride down W. St. Louis Street to its intersection with Alton Street near the Methodist Church where it turns around and takes passengers along the brick street to the intersection with Pearl Street and returns to the Visitors Center.  Carriage tickets are available at the Visitors Center for $5 per person or $40 for a carriage of ten.  Tips are discretionary to the driver.  Carriage rides run until 9pm on Friday and Saturday.

Friday and Saturday evenings promise a memorable event for people of all ages.  Carolers in the streets, musicians, madrigal singers and others dressed in Victorian period attire.  Come as you are, or put on your Victorian finery and join in the fun.  Who knows - you may run into Scrooge, Mr. Fezziwig, or even Charles Dickens himself!  And we know Father Christmas will be here for photographs at the old Town & Country Shop.    Through the generosity of Weil-Lombardo and McKendree University, there is a stage area that will feature entertainment on Friday and Saturday evenings.  Stores are open and you'll be whisked back to the late 1800s to enjoy shopping as it was (and still is) in Historic Lebanon.