Christmas is one of the most popular holidays all around the world, from the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree in New York City to building sandmen on the beach in Australia.
Every place has its own way of celebrating this festive holiday, so what can you do in St. Louis to celebrate this year? Over the past week, I went to two different Christmas events around the city, and I’m going to tell you if they are worth it or not. I will be judging these events on price, entertainment value, and most importantly, Christmas Spirit.
The St. Louis Zoo Wild Lights.
The Wild Lights have been held annually for many years now and have become a majorly popular event among St. Louis citizen. Sponsored by Commerce Bank, this event has an abundance of lights spread throughout the Zoo. As you might already know, the Zoo is free when you visit during the day, and the Wild Lights only costs $12 to $15. This might seem like a lot for a zoo that is free, but the tickets include many fun activities that are normally not free during regular hours.
Some of my favorite activities that I did were the 4D Theater Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, the carousel ride, and the gingerbread house maze. But some activities cost extra fees. For example, if you want to make s’mores or any food or drink, you still have to pay. Besides food, the only two things that cost money are the VR experience and Photos with Santa. I spent about 2 and a half hours at this event and was thoroughly entertained the entire time. The lights were beautifully set up, and it wasn’t too crowded. I will say it is a lot of walking around outside, so if you are someone who gets cold easily, I would recommend checking the weather before buying the tickets. The Christmas vibes were decent, there was a good mix of families, teenagers, and older couples.
Overall, this event is worth it. Many different activities appeal to different age groups, so it’s almost impossible to be bored. So definitely check out the St. Louis Zoo Wild Lights this Christmas season.
The Anheuser-Busch Brewery Lights.
This event includes lights, food, Clydsdals, a parade, and even a kid-friendly ride area. The price is reasonable, $12 for adults, $7 for guests 6-20, and kids under 5 can enter for free! The first thing that pleasantly surprised me about this event was the number of kid-friendly activities. Now this was a much smaller event compared to the Wild Lights, but they were sure able to fit many activities into the small area they had. The line to take a picture with the Clydsdales was very long, and it only got longer throughout the night. But if you don’t have the time to stand in line, you can see the Clydsdals at the parade that they hold every night. The parade was personally one of my favorite parts of the night; the band was amazing and even stayed after the parade to play some more.
On the negative side, they only had s’mores and bonfires available for the VIP entries. The VIP pass is $75, which is overpriced for what you get. Worst of all, I was excited to ice skate on the little rink they always set up, but this year it was replaced with a VIP tent!!! The normal entry is also fairly overpriced, considering the Zoo is much larger and the price was about the same. But the Christmas Spirit was amazing, the lights were beautiful, and all the workers were very kind.
Overall, I don’t think this event is worth it for high school students. It’s not a bad event at all, but for the price, I was expecting much more. If they added more activities and made the bonfires available to everyone, that would make the event much better.
In conclusion, I enjoyed my time at both events, but I definitely enjoyed the Zoo Wild Lights a lot more. There are also so many other fun Christmas activities around the St. Louis area that I didn’t go to. So definitely make sure to check out Union Station, the Kiener Plaza Winterfest, and of course, the Garden Glow at the Botanical Garden. I hope this gave you some ideas for activities to do over winter break. Merry Christmas!
![“All-Suburban [choir] was really fun because I got to work with a lot of people from other schools that I didn't know and I got to make friends. We got to learn fun but challenging music and perform for my parents so that was really fun. But the audition process was really stressful, because over 600 people auditioned but only around 150 actually made it into the choir so that was really intimidating for me. I was one out of three girls in my class who made it so that made me feel really special and I was really grateful to have this opportunity.”](https://psouthtreaty.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Image_20260523_140845_694.jpeg)
