Holiday Travel Idea: Kansas City Hallmark Christmas Festival

If you are like many sports fans, you watched the long-awaited Hallmark holiday movie, “Holiday Touchdown: A Chief’s Love Story.”

As the movie goes, Alana Higman, a die-hard Kansas City Chiefs fan and her family are competing to win the team’s Fan of the Year contest, in a process judged by the director of fan engagement Derrick. The fun of the movie for Missouri fans is, of course the Chiefs, and the chance to see Travis (and Jason) Kelce’s mom, Donna (“Mamma Kelse”) in her movie acting debut.

As with most Hallmark Christmas movies, some of the events in the movie takesplace at a typical “festival”– except this year there is a real place– Crown Center in Kansas City.

Their theme was “Be Merry. Make Memories, Find Magic.”

It is really surprising that Hallmark has not capitalized on their Christmas movies in Kansas City before as their company is headquartered there.

The real-life filming for the movie took place in  Downtown Independence, Missouri– which Missouri residents know as the home of Harry Truman. The movie featured the brick buildings, small businesses, and grand town hall of Independence. One change they made for the movie was the barbecue restaurant is actually a pizza place in real life. It was converted to a barbecue venue as a nod to Kansas City Barbecue.

At the Hallmark Christmas Experience, they re-created the small town shops, as shown in photo, right, and they had local venders at each “shop.”

For the first year, Hallmark, which is headquartered in Kansas City, has set up a “Hallmark Christmas Experience” which is a mock- festival at Crown Center. They have fire pits, decorations, a lighted walk area great for photo ops and of course, the famous cocoa with lots of whipped cream.

If you are looking for a road trip with some holiday cheer, travel the four hours to Kansas City for their Hallmark Christmas Festival. We really loved it. Crown Center is decked out in Christmas and Hallmark. Much of it is “old fashioned” holiday cheer as portrayed in the movies. The photo, left, shows a choir that showed up in the Crown Center Shops lobby. There was live entertainment with many carolers when we were there.

There are some ticketed items but also a lot of free events. They have the area near Crown Center decked out like a Hallmark Movie, complete with an ice skating rink.

There is an area to walk to that has a walking path and light display. It is fun during the day, but magical during the night. Throughout the event there are photo ops, such as a sleigh you could get in in the lighted path area.

There are also signs, Christmas trees and even a snow globe that visitors can climb into for a photo. The line outside the snow globe was long, but worth it if you want that experience.

There is also an area that festival-goers can address Hallmark Cards and mail them. Presumably there will be a Hallmark Christmas Experience post-mark on the envelopes. This area was for all ages and there was also a giant coloring page on the wall of one of the “shops” and bins of crayons so children and adults alike could color.

Travel Tips:

Transportation: We took the train from the Kirkwood Station in St. Louis. There are two stops in the St. Louis Area and then stops at Washington, Hermann, Jefferson City, Sedalia, Warrensburg, Lee’s Summit, Independence, and then Kansas City. The Kansas City Union Station was decorated with many lights and the outside is red and green. The locals are very proud of the light display at Union Station so we made sure to go look at it.

Depending on where you stay there are tips for you. If you stay at the Independence or Blue Spring Drury Hotel you could get off there and get transportation to the hotel. Check into taking the train to Crown Center. We aren’t sure if that is an option. If you choose to stay downtown, there is a walkway called “The Link” that takes you to Crown Center from Union Station and it’s all inside.

Warning for those who can’t walk distances, you might just want to drive and choose the Drury Hotel route with parking close to the hotel and then park at Crown Center. It was a long walk from Union Station to get to Crown Center. Not long if you can walk, but if you are coming off knee surgery or otherwise need help walking we wanted to mention that.

Festival Tip:

We bought the “Be Merry” pass, but really you could attend the festival without buying the pass. There were opportunities to see the Hallmark movie stars with the passes but there was plenty to do without the expense of the passes. It all depends on your tastes. There are those who want to see the stars and those happy with just the festival.

Besides the Christmas movies, this Hallmark Christmas Experience placed a heavy emphasis on the two successful television series they have: “When Calls the Heart” and “The Way Home.” At the ticketed events they had stars from these shows including Andie MacDowell who stars in “The Way Home.”

There were three weeks for the festival and each week there were a different group of stars from the Hallmark movies. You still have a week left if you are looking for something festive to do before Christmas.

This was the first year of the festival but it was obvious they plan to do it again and make it a Kansas City tradition, so if you don’t make it this year, you can plan to go next year.

The event is kid-friendly with activities and crafts for the kids but there are also pop-up bars. All ages will enjoy the hot chocolate or the hot adult drinks.

The festival reflects Kansas City’s involvement in the premiere of the movie involving the Chiefs. They held a “Red Carpet” event the night the movie premiered. There are the Chiefs hats for sale at various locations as well as other Chiefs gear.

The festival commemorates the fact that Hallmark is headquartered in Kansas City.

“Kansas City is the perfect location for the premiere,” says Samantha DiPippo, senior vice president of programming at Hallmark Media. “It brings the incredible film full circle to unite the cast, special guests and the community once again in this red-carpet event.”

Hallmark and Kansas City Visitors Bureau hopes to see a lot of people at their  Hallmark Christmas Experience on Crown Center Square.  They encourage festival goers to shop the Holiday Hallmarket and grab the vintage-inspired KC Chiefs knit hat and scarf as seen in the movie, and ornament for everyone your holiday shopping list.

Experience free family activities include tree-lightings and light shows at 6:30pm, 7:30pm, 8:30pm and 9:30pm, Festive Food Hall, Card Sending Station and so much more.  It will be Kansas City’s first-ever immersive experience with all the cozy charm of a Hallmark movie town square.

There is an area they call the “Festive Food Hall” which will have food. There are also the many Crown Center restaurants.

Hotels

The Westin Crown Center is available for anyone willing to spend upwards of $500 per night. There are other hotels but you have to figure out how to get down to the festival. If you hotel is along the Trolley route that could work. After attending and seeing all the options, we still choose our old favorite: the Drury Hotel.While there are hotels in the immediate area, they can be very pricey and may be full due to the festival, but with multiple locations for the Drury Hotels in the area you can stay there, drive down to the festival and park at Crown Center– then eat at a restaurant to get your parking validated. That is the most economical way to do it.

If you choose a Drury, be sure you use the promo code “SPORTS” and get our STLSportsPage discount.

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