The Show-Me State Games is an Olympic-style sports festival with more than 40 competitive sports for Missouri amateur athletes of all ages and abilities. This event is designed to inspire Missourians to develop their physical and competitive abilities and to foster an amateur athletic network of participants, volunteers and sports enthusiasts. The events encourage sportsmanship, physical fitness, healthy lifestyles and family fun. See our Website for details, a list of games and activities, schedules and online registration.

This is the 80th annual presentation of the world famous Plaza Lighting Ceremony. The event is held at the corner of Wyandotte and Nichols Road, just south of 47th Street. More than 80 miles of lights outline every building within Kansas City's famous Country Club Plaza shopping, dining and entertainment district.

A local celebrity flips the switch Thanksgiving evening at 7:30 p.m.; fireworks immediately follow. Enjoy live musical performances from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. All parking garages throughout the Plaza are free. The lights remain lit nightly, through 17 January.

A winter celebration featuring visual and performing arts, musicians, storytellers, dancers, magicians, actors, puppeteers artists. The theme is Wonderland. Festivities kick-off with a grand procession leading the way to the main stage, located at the intersection of Grand Boulevard and Lindell Avenue. Fireworks at 9 p.m. and at midnight.

Rarely seen items from the archives are on public display, featuring big documents, big events, big personalities, and big ideas from the region’s history. Organized by the National Archives at Kansas City, It’s Big features pieces of American history including: audio clips from the FBI’s surveillance of Kansas City mobsters; the original complaint from Brown v. Board of Education, the case that ended school segregation; documents and photos of famous personalities with a local connection, such as Negro Leagues baseball player Roy Tyler and Kansas City founding father John Calvin McCoy; and famous and infamous signatures found in the National Archives holdings, including Abraham Lincoln, Leon Trotsky, Sitting Bull, Walt Disney and the Birdman of Alcatraz.

This exhibit features Civil War flags from the Missouri State Museum’s collection. Many of these flags have not been on display since before 1920. The exhibit includes more than 125 Civil War flags, both Union and Confederate. Presented in the Elizabeth Rozier Gallery, inside the Union Hotel at Jefferson Landing State Historic Site.