Europeans did not begin to settle there until French explorers claimed and founded the colony of Louisiana in 1699.

Gabriel Fuselier de la Claire, a Frenchman from Lyon, and some other Frenchmen from Mobile, in present-day Alabama, arrived in late 1763 or early 1764.

Fuselier bought land between Vermilion River and Bayou Teche from the Eastern Attakapas chief Kinemo.

Shortly after that, the rival Appalousa (Opelousas) invaded the area via the Atchafalaya and Sabine rivers, and exterminated much of the Eastern Atakapan.

They were assigned to this area in 1765 by Jean-Jacques Blaise d'Abbadie, the French official who was administering Louisiana for the Spanish.

They had been expelled from Acadia by the British,[9][10] who had defeated France in the Seven Years' War and taken over its territories in North America east of the Mississippi River.

Spain took over Louisiana and other territories west of the Mississippi but tended to rely on French colonists to administer La Louisiane.

Their members had migrated from Saint-Domingue (now Haïti) or from Paris via Fort de Chartres, in present-day Illinois.

Between the arrivals of the two groups, the French captain Étienne de Vaugine came in 1764 and acquired a large domain east of Bayou Teche.

[citation needed] The third oldest town in Louisiana, St. Martinville has many buildings and homes with historic architecture.

The historic St. Martin of Tours Catholic Church and La Maison Duchamp on Main Street are part of the legacy of the Acadian people.

St. Martinville is the site of the "Evangeline Oak", featured in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem about the Acadian expulsion.

In the story line, Katherine rekindles romance and discovers where she truly belongs after she comes to St. Martinville to spend Christmas with her mother Lilly (Markie Post), and son Zack (Brody Rose).

Randy Travis and Ed Asner are cast, respectively, as Mr. Greenhall and Papa Noel (the bayou Santa Claus).