STL Staycation: A Week with My Sister

If you know me, you know I’ve never been a fan of St. Louis. I’ve lived here my whole life, and I’ve never met anyone who dreamed of coming here. People tend to get stuck here (grew up here and never left despite many attempts, like me) or move for a job or family. But it’s not like New York, Los Angeles, Nashville, or Chicago where people are like that’s where I’m going to make all my dreams come true.

That said. I’ve put more energy into being upset about where I live than into embracing what it has to offer, which is stupid, so I’m actively working to change that.

My sister recently came to visit and we had a lovely little staycation!

Our first stop was The Fountain on Locust which is our favorite restaurant. We always go there before a show at the Fox because it’s so close. The Fountain specializes in soups, cocktails, and ice cream, which might sound like an odd collection but everything on the menu is absolutely amazing.

We continued on to The Fabulous Fox Theatre with its stunning architecture to see The Notebook: the Musical. The Notebook is my favorite book and movie, so I was already biased toward loving the story but the musical really took it to another level. The performers were breathtaking, and not only was their talent insane, but seeing the story told in this new, yet familiar, way, was really beautiful. The music is absolutely perfect.

Next, we went to Garden Glow at the Missouri Botanical Garden, a can’t-miss event for anyone who lives in the area. I love Christmastime, especially the decor and the holiday lights, so I love Garden Glow. It’s the one thing I make sure to attend every year.

I usually choose the first available entry time of the day which I think is 5 or 5:30 pm, but since I was hanging with my sister and we had other plans for the day we went a little later, around 6:30 pm, and I don’t recommend that because it was nearly impossible to find parking. The garden lots were full. We searched for street parking for a good 30-40 minutes which I’ve never had to do before, and we didn’t get in until an hour past our entry time. When we left the main lot was near empty, so it seems arriving either toward the beginning or the end of the night works best. We also went on a day with great weather—this winter has been a lot warmer than we’re used to, so I’m sure that had something to do with it being more crowded as well.

Parking situation aside, the lights were as spectacular as always, and it didn’t feel crowded walking through the gardens except at the photo spots. I would recommend the gardens get some volunteers stationed at the photo spots to help people move along a bit faster. People were more than willing to take each other’s photos which was so lovely but a lot of our pics didn’t turn out well because people didn’t know how to adjust the light settings lol.

I’m a total homebody, both by choice because I’m an introvert and not by choice because I only have 2 friends in the area and I work from home. But the point is, I very rarely leave my house, so any time someone comes to visit me I feel obligated to pack in as many activities as possible. This is both to keep my guest entertained but also because I don’t have people around on a regular basis to do things with!

That said, I really love spending time with the people I love. So even though STL has some fun things that got us out of the house, my favorite day with my sister was sitting in the house playing board games and watching Christmas movies. The time together was more valuable than anything else.

Hopefully I will get comfortable exploring my city by myself in 2026.

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas!