New West Multimedia

Christmas in Montana’s Choteau County Is an Old Tradition Not to be Missed

By Lynn Donaldson, 12-01-10

Choteau County Christmas happens the first weekend in December in the heart of Montana’s farm and ranch country, between Fort Benton and Big Sandy. Along that 37-mile stretch of Highway 87 are the towns of Loma, population 93, which is near Decision Point, where the Marias & Missouri Rivers converge, and where Lewis and Clark nearly took the wrong fork. Also there: Virgelle, official population 2, a remote and tiny town consisting of the General Mercantile and an abandoned grain elevator. These communities, as well as Geraldine, Montana, celebrate Choteau County Country Christmas with craft fairs, bake sales, parades, dances and food bizarres. Shoppers flock from Great Falls and Havre and lots of other places to be a part of an old-fashioned welcoming of the holiday.

Santa’s there too, of course, along with the Parade of Lights, the Christmas Church Tour, a live nativity scene and the White Christmas Dance in an old community hall in Loma.

Hot chocolate and cider are sold on the streets and there are more pies and cookies than a person has room for. Antique dealers Don Sorensen and Jim Griffin aren’t selling their famous popcorn balls made from an old family recipe on an old-fashioned cook stove, however. They’re giving them away.

This year, Choteau County’s Christmas is Dec. 3-5.  For more information, visit Montana’s tourism site on the event.

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