AD ⚜️ I celebrated an early holiday in Natchitoches, louisianatravel.🎄The town, that is the oldest permanent settlement in the Louisiana Purchase territory, has a month-long festival devoted to Christmas beginning the Saturday before Thanksgiving. That history, and the connection to one of the most renown Black artists in the USA [Clementine Hunter], is what drew me to want to visit and explore it for myself. The festival is one of the oldest community-based holiday celebrations in the country with more than 350,000 lights illuminating the area every evening. Every Saturday, during the festival, there are fireworks at night. And different activities take place each weekend like cookies with 🎅, tours that allow to you to see inside historic homes, a lighted boat parade, and more. If the town rings a bell, it might also be because of its Hollywood or Broadway connections. Steel Magnolias is both loosely based on people in Natchitoches and [the movie] was filmed there. Julia Roberts c...