Sewickley's Holiday Season Starts Four Weeks Before Light Up Night: The Village Calendar From Early November to the Santa Parade
"Orders must be received by November 6, so get them in now!" The Village Garden Club of Sewickley posted that line with its Greens & Goodies listing on the Sewickley Valley Chamber of Commerce calendar. The deadline is this Friday.
The Garden Club says wreath preorders are new this year. Pickup is at the Greens & Goodies sale on Saturday, December 5, after the Santa Parade, at St. Stephen's Henning House, 327 Broad St. So a choice made on the first Friday of November decides part of the first Saturday in December. That gap is a good picture of Sewickley's holiday calendar this year. Light Up Night on December 4 gets the fireworks and the crowds. The season's real start is four weeks earlier, and it runs on evergreens, film screenings and a library community room.
Follow the Village Garden Club through the calendar and its season has three parts, each at a different spot in the village:
Read in order, those dates give a household two ways to get a Garden Club wreath on the front door: order a finished one by Friday and collect it on parade morning, or make one at the library on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. The sale itself adds floral arrangements and live plants to the table. The preorder closes first.
The Lindsay Theater and Cultural Center has the next four weeks mostly to itself. The 2026 Three Rivers Film Festival comes back to The Lindsay from November 6 to 14, its sixth year as a festival venue. Seven features screen there between Friday, November 6 and Sunday, November 8.
Opening night falls on the wreath deadline. The Gymnast, a sports drama filmed in the region, has its Pennsylvania premiere at The Lindsay on Friday, November 6 at 7 p.m. A Shorts N'At block of short documentaries by Western Pennsylvania filmmakers screens Saturday, November 14 at 1 p.m. Film Pittsburgh sells tickets online, and The Lindsay also sells them on the day of each screening. Film Pittsburgh has run the festival since 1982. Readers named it the region's best film festival in Pittsburgh Magazine's 2026 Best of the 'Burgh poll, according to The Lindsay's festival page.
The theater's next listed date is Thursday, November 19, when the Emerging Filmmakers Showcase screens Dark Noon at 7 p.m. It's free, and The Lindsay recommends an RSVP.
The holiday calendar picks up in the last week of November and spreads across the village.
The Sewickley Turkey Trot 5K starts Thanksgiving morning, Thursday, November 26, at War Memorial Park, 811 Blackburn Road. The race runs 8:30 to 9:30 a.m. Race-day registration and packet pickup open at 7 a.m., and entry is $35.
The next day, Friday, November 27, the Chamber launches its Holiday's in the Village of Sewickley campaign, which runs through January 16, 2027. The main piece is a Holiday Village Passport, a bingo card you fill in at participating businesses. Complete a line and you're entered for a chance at gift cards. Finished passports are due at Sewickley Public Library by 5 p.m. on January 16. That window covers Small Business Saturday on November 28 and keeps going for seven weeks.
So the library comes up twice in the same stretch: once for the Garden Club workshops on November 29, and again as the drop-off point for passports in January.
From Thursday through Sunday of the first December weekend, the calendar fills up almost every hour. Here is that stretch as the Chamber lists it.
| Day | Time | What | Where |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thu, Dec 3 | 5:30–10 p.m. | The Confluence, a night of film with the Watersmith Guild | Listed with The Lindsay |
| Thu, Dec 3 | 5:45–9:30 p.m. | Mahjong & Mistletoe Charity Fundraiser | See Chamber listing |
| Fri, Dec 4 | 5–8:30 p.m. | Sewickley Light Up Night | Broad St., Walnut St. and around the village |
| Sat, Dec 5 | 10:30 a.m. | Santa Parade, sponsored by the Rotary Club of Quaker Valley | Village streets |
| Sat, Dec 5 | After parade to 1 p.m. | Santa in the gazebo | Wolcott Park |
| Sat, Dec 5 | After parade | Greens & Goodies sale and wreath pickup | Henning House, 327 Broad St. |
| Sun, Dec 6 | Noon–4 p.m. | Free horse-drawn carriage rides, sponsored by FNB | From Wolcott Park |
The Chamber's Light Up Night page shows how Friday night is laid out. Larry Richert from KDKA emcees the main stage on Broad Street, which opens with Wexford School of Rock at 5 p.m., with Neon Bridges Band and the JAGGERZ later in the evening. Tom Forrest emcees a youth stage on Walnut Street.
The rest of the night is spread across the village:
Free parking is listed at Heritage Valley Hospital, Sewickley Presbyterian Church, Sewickley Public Library, St. James Church, St. Stephen's Church and the YMCA upper lot. The Chamber runs the night as a PRC Zero Waste Event. Shop windows are decorated for that night, and public voting on the displays runs from December 4 to 13.
Saturday is when the Garden Club's November 6 deadline pays off. Anyone who preordered walks from the parade route to Henning House on Broad Street, where the wreath is waiting. After that weekend, the carriage rides leave from Wolcott Park every Sunday through December 27: the 6th, 13th, 20th and 27th, noon to 4 p.m.
One more item could change this calendar, and it doesn't have a date yet. TribLive reported on September 11 that Anthony Roppa, a Sewickley native and 1998 Quaker Valley graduate, is rebuilding the old 424 Walnut restaurant into a high-end place with no name announced yet. Roppa runs Bar Noel, the holiday craft-cocktail pop-up piano bar that was at the former Sewickley Tavern one year and then inside Mi Cita.
The TribLive article describes the plans. The eatery is about 3,500 square feet, with a sliding wall system that opens the street side for indoor and outdoor seating on Walnut Street. There will be a piano with seating around it, live concerts, about 90 seats on the main floor, 16 wines by the glass and a private wine-tasting room in the cellar. The menu is built on partnerships with more than 30 local farms and producers. "While the way people eat is changing, the desire to gather remains timeless," Roppa told TribLive.
Sewickley Borough Council voted unanimously on August 11 to approve the liquor license transfer to Roppa's Sewickley Hospitality Group, and construction permits were approved August 27. Total investment is expected to be more than $2 million. As of the September report, opening day was planned for "sometime in November." If 424 Walnut opens on that schedule, Walnut Street, home to Light Up Night's youth stage, will have a new year-round piano room before the December weekend.
If you're putting this year's dates on the calendar and also wondering what this holiday season could mean for a sale or purchase in Sewickley next spring, Luz Campbell is happy to talk it through in English or Spanish. Request a Home Valuation & Consultation whenever it suits you, even if that's between the parade and the Greens & Goodies table.
Over my nearly two decades as a real estate agents, buyers and sellers have come to trust me as a knowledgeable professional to advise them on their real estate needs. They know they are getting unparalleled expertise and service in an ever-changing real estate landscape. I treat every home transaction as I would my own.
Get In Touch With Luz To Learn More
