The Festival of African and African American Music will present an extraordinary variety of musical events celebrating composers and artists of African descent. The four-day festival will features:

• Internationally-acclaimed performers and local artists
• Concerts, lecture-recitals and discussion forums with some of the foremost African heritage scholars
• The launch of new publications by Oxford University Press by William Chapman Nyaho and Fred Onovwerosuoke

Special Guests include: Nyaho-Garcia Piano Duo; Violinist Rachel Barton Pine; Pianists Silvia Belfiore and Darryl Hollister; Oboist Althea Ifeka; Flutist Wendy Hymes; Equinox Chamber Players; Musicians of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra; the National Dance Troupe of Nigera; Winneba Youth Choir of Ghana; St. Louis Children's Choir; the Kirkwood Community College Choir.

Christmas carolers, refreshments, pictures with Santa, free carriage rides, door prizes, face painting and more await you in downtown Cape Girardeau.

Shoppers can register for a chance to win a $2,000 shopping spree.

Experience this holiday tradition at the Missouri Botanical Garden. Eight G-scale model trains traverse a mountainous landscape through detailed winter scenes in miniature. Colorful poinsettias and flowering plants highlight the seasonal display.

Closed Christmas day.

This traditional German holiday event takes place during the community Krist Kindl Market, which is held at Stone Hill Winery. The Strehly House will be decorated for Christmas, including seven styles of German Christmas trees.

German springerle cookies, heidesand, stollen, zimtsterne, pfeffernusse, chocolate lebkuchen, spekulatius, zimmerschied and other refreshments are served.

This educational program is one of the few chances to visit the Faust Historic Village for free without an appointment.

Faust Historic Village is a collections of building moved to Faust Park in Chesterfield from around the Chesterfield and St. Louis area to save from demolition. The house were build between 1840 and 1890 and are opened to the public and will be staffed by trained docents that will tell the history of the house. Many weekends a blacksmith is working in the blacksmith shop.