It's here-Christmas. The Annual Chouteau County Christmas Stroll always ushers in the Christmas season. This year Big Sandy's Christmas Stroll is "A Cowboy Christmas". Over the last three weeks the Mountaineer has tried to prepare you for this weekend. It takes a lot of work to accomplish the "Cowboy Christmas" and the Big Sandy CSI committee members Marlys Myers, Tina Cook, Tracy Schuster, Leslie Gregory, Danielle Weaver, Crystal Geyer, Dave Louvar, Pete Jerrel, and Travis Baumann have been doing the majority of the work. Besides a huge thank you, it's important that these community members clearly understand exactly what they do for us. It starts the community spirit of Christmas here, we laugh louder together, we love each in spite of knowing each other's weakness. My mother before she passed away told me the best thing about a small community is that everyone knows each other's business. It's difficult during our everyday life but when life gets hard we band together. These 8 allow us to celebrate the spirit together. It's a massive amount of work, and the need of others to volunteer is important, so when you see one of them this Christmas Month, tell them how much you appreciate everything they do for all of us. It's wonderful the affect their work has on us!

The celebration has already begun of course, with everyone who helped prepare the buttons, done all the shopping, including the big-ticket items someone will win. For the adult buttons the grand prize is a $1,000 gift certificate from Valley Furniture. The children's grand prize winner is an electric 4-wheeler. There are lots of prizes too, so Christmas gifts could come early for many.

Those who have taken the ropes and making wreathes to help auction off at City Hall on Saturday have already set the direction of our community spirit. The auction and the Button Draw starts immediately at city hall following the Parade. Your purchased Button needs to be present in order to win.

Everyone, who decorated their homes and floats with lights, continues the celebration with joy and wonder. I love our small "short" Christmas Parade of lights that starts when it gets dark at 5:30 PM on Main Street. Doesn't matter how many floats we have, we have lights and an incredible spirit of celebration.

You can register for a drawing to win FUN prizes for all ages at The Grocery Store starting at 7 AM! Might as well start the day early! At the Mint starting at 8:30 till 10:00 Santa will be eating breakfast and sitting with the children of our community for pictures that will be memories for years. Bring your own camera's, or ask someone who has one to take a picture of your child as there is no photographer this year.

Ok so, maybe 7:00 or 8:30 is to early? Everything else starts at 9:00. The Craft and Gift Bazar will be starting at City Hall and at the Big Sandy Museum. The Big Sandy Library is having a book sale, a raffle auction and a Snowman craft for the kids to work on. The Senior Citizens is also having a Bake and Craft Sale along with a spaghetti dinner starting at 11:00 till 2:00. Cow Patti's Cook Shed will be by the Firemen's Park ready to serve.