Sights and Sounds of Christmas

Sights and sounds is always fun for the holidays. They do it early in December so it sneaks up unexpectedly. They have expanded it so much since I first started going a couple years ago.
Love the boy scouts funnel cakes. The line near one of the entrances was really busy so I thought I was going to have to skip it this year but they had another booth! :-) With hardly any wait! then we got our yearly turkey leg.
The light tree was very nice, great photo ops for families. :)
The bridge crossing is always a cluster of mess. I wish people will just walk across. I understand that the lights are so pretty on the water but stopping everyone behind you is not very polite.
Oh yes, handmade corn dogs are yum also. They do a great job every year. It has become our yearly tradition. :)

Festival of lights await you at the park grounds with this family friendly event. There is a lot to do for kids with pony rides, petting zoo, small carnival rides, and free outdoor movies, which on this night was the original Rudolph the red nosed reindeer.
Every tree in the park is lit up with lights. There is one music stage by the first area of food booths near the entrance. Most of the food items at this group of vendors is in the $ 3 range. Vendors were selling corn dogs, excellent tacos, pizza, bacon wrapped dogs, manske cinnamon rolls, roasted corn etc.
In the back of the festival by the big carnival are more booths with food in the $ 5 and $ 6 range. Items sold there are funnel cakes, brisket, turkey legs, philly sandwiches etc. The rides for kids can be expensive, but the first day of this 4 day festival is half price for all the kid’s rides. There were plenty of port o potties near the entrance. Most were fairly clean, We were lucky, as my spouse works for the lead sponsor, and we had our own exclusive conference building with restrooms and food.
Fun Facts:
4 day event
no parking, suggest you park at Bob cat stadium and take the shuttle bus. They come every ten minutes.
bring cash for the token machines. All food and rides must be tokens only.
bring your camera
entrance fee $ 5, kids free (I think)

I love Sights and Sounds! It to me is the definition of family. The festival itself has this rather «homey» feel to it. From the local venders, performers, and unique entertainment, there is something there for everyone to fall in love with.
What ever you do, BRING CASH.
After you gather up about an easy $ 50 worth if tokens, make sure to hit up the Boy Scout biscuits! Top em with honey and butter! FTW
While chewing down on your cast iron skillet biscuits of gold you can sit your behind down on a nice hay barrel and watch a show on the stage.
And you MUST go through the manger. You get to see the story of how the candy cane was made and obviously get rewarded with a prayer and a mini candy cane!
If you’re a runner or active individual the festival puts on a 5K/​1K Fun Run on Saturday of the festival! —-I highly recommend participating in this! — –
Next time you’re in San Marcos or surrounding areas, be sure to check out the glorious Sights & Sounds of Christmas!

I love coming to Sights And Sounds. I’ve been coming for years. They always have fun Christmas ideas and gifts. The best gifts are when you can get something unique as while supports local small businesses.

I use to love going to the sights and sounds 12 years ago but unfortunately it has become so overcrowded and commercial it is no longer fun. I think they should of kept this a local event instead of advertising in Austin and San Antonio. If you want to have any fun and not have to wait in hour long lines to make a candle the only night you can go is Wednesday right after they open otherwise be prepared to be jammed pack like cattle everywhere you walk. There use to be just one merry-​go-​round. Now there are about 6 or 7 rides many aimed at the older kids. I think it is great there is actually something for older kids to do in San Marcos but this is no longer an event to take the little kids if you are looking for a good time. It is packed, a lot of unsupervised teens and very little Christmas scenery. Bigger is not always better. I think this will be my last year of going. I would imagine this is still a big hit with the younger crowd, junior high and high school.

Sights & Sounds, what can one say? It’s hard to believe at times this little gem sits a mere two blocks away from the burgeoning 33,000+ student campus that is Texas State University-​San Marcos.
Sights & Sounds is truly about a small town, community-​based gathering for the holiday season. No, it’s not a 100,000 person a night extravaganza where you’re confined by shuttles as the only effective means of transportation, and it’s also not an overly commercialized event, either. You’ll find plenty of lights in the trees and from the overhead light poles – and piped Christmas music emanating from speakers around the grounds – but it’s not a thematic Trail of Lights replica by any stretch of the imagination.
You really have to appreciate the simple life approach that Sights & Sounds takes to celebrating the Christmas season in order to enjoy it. The community draw is the sound stage, where school after school, group after group, choir after choir, troop across the sound stage in this city-​wide Christmas pageant. I don’t watch these shows as much as I once did, but I always know someone’s child in them. And, honestly, this single aspect is one of the more enduring and endearing features of Sights & Sounds.
I think the event’s allure increases dramatically on the colder nights, when a particular mix of wintry atmosphere, Christmastide approaching, and «Wouldn’t a hot chocolate be really great right now» rules. Balmy 70 degree temperatures just don’t give this event the same curb appeal it has when the weather outside is frightful.
I personally don’t care for the expanded carnival midway atmosphere aspects of the event, but, fortunately, you can ignore that as it is isolated at the back of the fairgrounds. And, honestly, the event has to appeal to everyone.
The Bethlehem exhibit seemed more disorganized than usual this year. I mean, when the angels in the manger scene announce «The real baby will be here in an hour», and it’s already 6:30 (an hour after opening), it’s one of those shake your head and laugh aloud moments. Since Santa arrives by a different conveyance each night of Sights & Sounds, maybe he should bring the baby with him. That is, if Mrs. Claus is okay with it.
It was great fun checking out the baby goats and camel. I hadn’t seen a camel drink from a soda can before, and that was really quite cool. Just in case you’re wondering, they do know how to rotate the can with their tongue to get the opening right side down, and no, they don’t want to give it up at the end any more than we do. The camels and goats will nibble at your hand so be sure to have food, because that’s what hands are for!
Last, but not not least, don’t forget to check out the Arts & Crafts tent. It’s at the back of the fairgrounds, between Bethlehem and the midway. There’s only one solitary white tent, so there are fewer vendors than there once were when there were two plus candy-​cane motif tents, but you still might find that unique Christmas gift for that special someone here.
San Martian by trade, Austinite by residence, I will attest that Sights & Sounds is both a «Don’t miss» and a keeper.
UPDATE: Pictures added 12÷5÷2010.

I went to Sights and Sounds last year and had a wonderful time. The place is so fully packed that I didn’t get to see it all in the three hours I was there. They had a Nativity scene with live animals for petting. I got to make a candle the old fashion way. They sold corn on the cob and all the kinda carnival food there is. They had a huge area for arts and crafts of all kinds that was really interesting and full of truly uniquely talented people. Woodworkers, bead workers, airbrushes, Jewel workers, food workers, and so on were expressing what they could do. I bought a necklace last year of a sand dollar and I’ve worn it everyday since, I’ve never taken it off. I had a beanie airbrushed with my name and a clover, but my head was simply too big for it lol. I had a huge candied apple that I could not finish in two seating’s. The music was great, along with everyone there. Sights and Sounds truly brought Christmas to Texas for me, this was my first one being away from my family in California, and it really made me feel at home.
I would recommend that everyone takes a night off and go experience the Sights and Sounds of Christmas.

This annual holiday celebration in San Marcos reminds me of the whirling, sparkling, whole-​town festivals that you only seem to find in romantic comedies. On the big screen, everything seems perfect and delightful. The characters are all smiles, stuffing their faces with sausage wraps and funnel cake served to them by fresh-​faced Boy Scouts. The skies swirl with holiday lights, and children’s choirs trill out holiday carols off screen.
It’s a cinema fantasy, a diorama depicting small town America celebrating Christmas. (And it’s always happier than CNN reports of security guards stomped to death by zaftig Wal-​Mart shoppers.)
Let us, then, give thanks for Sights and Sounds. It’s as close as anything you’ll find to that cinema setpiece. Never have I seen a more complete, earnest, energetic, or cost-​effective holiday festival. Here’s how this goes down:
For four nights a year, the downtown park along the San Marcos River is draped in lights. Carnival rides — from a classic merry-​go-​round and a wee tractor-​pulled train for tots to the spinning pukemakers for teens — hold forth on one end of the park. On the other, a living nativity and petting zoo, complete with baby donkeys that appear to be upholstered in shag carpeting and are frankly cute beyond belief, are musts for anyone with a beating heart.
From dozens of food booths, churches and youth groups peddle corn dogs, kettle corn, burgers, gyros, tacos, curly fries, pork chops, you name it. Some annual stand-​outs: Philly cheese steaks, kettle biscuits (baked over hot coals), freshly dipped corn dogs and funnel cake. Soft drinks, coffee, hot cider and hot chocolate are also available. Food, purchased with tokens at $ 1/​token, is generally a great value. For $ 20 this year, Total Woman and I purchased the following: Philly cheese steak, chicken quesadilla, funnel cake, chocolate chip cookies, snickerdoodle cookies, a giagantic rice krispie treat and a mini-​loaf of banana bread. We could have stretched it further — sausage wraps are just 2 tokens — but we splurged on the 6-​token cheese steak. We were not disappointed. (Food and rides require tokens.)
For years, admission to Sights and Sounds was free. And it’s still free to kids 10 and under. But the recession has forced organizers to charge $ 4 for anyone over 10. Let me assure you, however — it’s worth that and more. And parking is free on surrounding streets and at Bobcat Stadium where a free shuttle will take you straight to the festival.
There you’ll find a tent and a permanent park building housing art, craft and jewelry booths. Every year, we buy one of the beautiful beaded crosses sold at a booth benefitting an organization that reconnects teen siblings separated by divorce or the foster system. These handmade crosses are truly a «get» and so they go quickly.
A positive, healthy energy permeates this event. Everyone seems in a good mood. Children smile and laugh, couples walk arm in arm, neighbors exchange friendly greetings and tips on where to find the best food. Choirs take the stage to sing carols, and old-​school TV specials flicker on an outdoor screen. It can be cold on the river, so the smart ones bundle up as teenagers walk stiffly in t-​shirts and jeans.
And then there are the lights. Strung from trees and poles, forming Christmas trees and cascading from the sky. They illuminate the entire park. And they light aglow the faces of San Martians who every year come to know the kind of Christmas that, in most towns, exists only at a theater near you.