The Texas Citrus Fiesta celebrates the thing Mission was built on. The Valley's citrus harvest comes in over the winter, and the festival lands in January at the point where the fruit and the Winter Texan season peak together.
The part nobody expects is the Product Costume Style Show. Garments are constructed entirely from citrus peel, seeds, leaves and other plant material — not decorated with them, made from them. There is nothing else like it in Texas, and it is the reason the festival has outlasted the agricultural fair it grew out of.
If you have never been
Come for the parade and the style show; they are the two things that are actually unlike anything else. The rest is a good regional festival — food, music, a coronation — and it is a comfortable one to bring children to.
January is the busiest month of the Winter Texan season, so expect the crowd to be a genuine mix of Valley families and seasonal residents.