Warren Lights Its Holiday Trees Twice, a Day Apart

At 6:45 on the Friday after Thanksgiving, the Mt. Hope High School Marching Band starts playing in front of Massasoit Park at 236 Water Street. When it finishes, Santa climbs onto his fire truck and the crowd follows the band and the truck up Baker Street toward Main. Thirty minutes later, at 7:15, the countdown at Town Hall turns on the lights along Main Street.

The 38th Warren Holiday Festival runs Friday, November 27, and Saturday, November 28, 2026, and the two days work like separate events. Friday is a short evening packed into the blocks between Water Street and Town Hall. Saturday is a spread-out afternoon across churches, galleries, studios and Water Street shops, and it ends with a second tree lighting at the south end of town. Every event on both days is free.

Friday is an evening that walks uphill

Friday covers about four hours, and nearly all of it happens on Baker Street, Church Street and lower Water Street before everyone moves up to Main. Here's how the night runs on the festival's Friday schedule:

1. 5:00 to 7:00. Santa arrives on a decorated fire truck at the foot of Baker Street, then heads to The Firemen's Museum at 38 Baker St. to hear children's wishes. The Wharf Tavern sponsors hot chocolate and cookies at 215 Water St., and Mechanics Fire Company, Station #2 sponsors them at 243 Water St.
2. Throughout the early evening. The Federal Blues R.I.M. carriage house at 42 Baker St. holds an open house with militia in colonial dress. Stilt-walkers, jugglers and hula-hoopers work Water and Baker Streets. Washington Lodge #3 at 39 Baker St. opens for tours. The festival calls it the second-oldest continuously running Masonic hall in the Western Hemisphere.
3. 5:15 and 6:00. Marvelous Marvin's "Laugh Count" magic show plays at the lodge, along with the "Fill-a-Trunk" toy drive. Bring a new, unwrapped toy.
4. 5:15 and 6:15. Circus Dynamics fire spinners perform behind 39 Baker St.
5. 5:30. At Maxwell House, 59 Church St., the Massasoit Historical Association serves mulled cider and cookies. Historian and musician Richard Donohue presents "Cantica Nativitatis," a program of Christmas songs from the 10th through 19th centuries. The Baptist Church at 407 Main St. has s'mores until 7:30.
6. 6:00. The Very Merry Dickens Carolers sing at Town Hall, and the Mt. Hope High School Vocal Ensemble performs upstairs in the sanctuary at First Methodist Church, 25 Church St. The church also has ornament crafts downstairs.
7. 6:45 to 7:15. The marching band plays at Massasoit Park, the procession climbs Baker Street, and the Main Street Light Ceremony takes place at Town Hall, 514 Main St.
8. After-Light, until 9:00. arc{hive} book + snackery at 4 Market St. pours cocktails and serves snacks. The Collaborative, 508 Main St., hosts an After-Light Poetry Night. Bring a poem if you have one.

Friday is a timetable. The lighting happens once, at 7:15, and the magic show and fire spinners each have two set start times. The best evening is the one that has you on Baker Street at 6:45.

Saturday trades the procession for a circuit

On Saturday the festival leaves the crowd and spreads out. From noon to 4:00, an old-fashioned trolley sponsored by Navigant Credit Union loops through six stops. It takes 20 minutes to finish one route, so you can treat the day as a series of short visits.

The stops are Town Hall at 514 Main St., the corner of Joyce Street and Railroad Avenue, 28 Market St. at the old 2nd Story Theatre, Luca's Children's Boutique at 193 Water St., 243 Water St. across from Studio 246, and Blount Clam Shack & Market at 406 Water St.

The Saturday schedule groups itself into three areas.

Main Street and Church Street

• Santa arrives by fire truck at 521 Main St. and walks to the Historic Warren Armory, 11 Jefferson St., for selfies from noon to 3:00. Bring a non-perishable food item for a local food pantry.
• George Hail Library, 530 Main St., runs gingerbread cookie decorating with timed-entry tickets, plus crafts and tours of the Charles Whipple Greene Museum.
• The Warren Youth Center behind Town Hall offers holiday crafts and hot cocoa, hosted by the Warren Prevention Coalition and East Bay Recovery Center.
• The Baptist Church at 407 Main St. has greeting-card making for the senior center. The Very Merry Dickens Carolers sing there from noon to 2:00, followed by a Vox Hunters holiday sing-along from 2:00 to 4:00.
• First Methodist Church, 25 Church St., runs orange-and-clove pomander making. The New England Bell Ringers perform from 2:30 to 4:00, with hot chocolate and Christmas cookies afterward.
• Maxwell House, 59 Church St., hosts corn husk doll making with mulled cider from 1:00 to 4:00.
• The Armory hosts the Toe Jam Winter Variety Show at 12:30 and 1:30, with a snow machine, and Marvelous Marvin's "Brain Circus" at 3:00.

Market Street and Cutler Street

• Imago Gallery, 36 Market St., hosts a musical instrument "petting zoo" with Aubrey Atwater from 1:00 to 2:00, then Dulcimer & Co. at 3:00.
• Mudstone Studios, 30 Cutler St., holds the Very Merry Mudstone Market from noon to 4:00. Expect an outdoor raku firing if the weather allows, wheel-throwing demonstrations inside, and light refreshments. Mudstone is a working ceramics studio that sells pottery made on-site.

Water Street

• Blount Clam Shack & Market gives away free chowder, mac and cheese, and fuzzy socks.
• Face painting runs at Luca's Boutique, at Studio 246 at 246 Water St., and at The Collaborative on Main. Balloons by Ceil works out of Savon Shoes at 471 Main St.

Saturday's second lighting comes at Burr's Hill Park

By 4:30 on Saturday, the festival moves south to Burr's Hill Park on Water Street. People gather for holiday singing, the tree is lit at 5:30, and the Blount Clam Shack food truck hands out free snacks. At 6:00, the Vox Hunters lead music and a sing-along at arc{hive} book + snackery on Market Street. There's no cover, and drinks and snacks are for sale.

That gives Warren two tree lightings with very different feels. Friday's comes at the end of a parade, in front of Town Hall, at night. Saturday's comes at the end of a daytime circuit, by the water, just after sunset. Both nights end at the same small room on Market Street. arc{hive} is a used and rare bookshop with a bar and snackery, run by husband and wife Uriah Donnelly and Janet Moscarello since it opened in 2022.

What the 2026 program adds

The Saturday trolley route, the Armory shows and the chowder at Blount stay the same as last year's festival. Most of the changes fall in the arts and music. Compared with the 2025 program, which listed a ventriloquist and a ukulele group at Imago, 2026 adds:

• The Very Merry Mudstone Market and raku firing on Cutler Street
• Aubrey Atwater's instrument petting zoo and Dulcimer & Co. at Imago Gallery
• A Vox Hunters sing-along at the Baptist Church, and a second Vox Hunters set at arc{hive} after the Burr's Hill lighting
• Richard Donohue's "Cantica Nativitatis" at Maxwell House in place of last year's cider and cookies alone
• A Friday After-Light, with cocktails at arc{hive} and a poetry night at The Collaborative

The town's family traditions now share the schedule with more of Warren's studio and acoustic-music circle. On Saturday that pulls the festival onto Cutler Street and Market Street as much as Main.

The committee behind it had a stormy fall

The festival is organized by the Warren Holiday & Folk on the Farm Committee, with Elwood Donnelly as chair and treasurer and Julie Abbruzzi as co-chair. The longer name is new this year. EastBayRI reported in September that the Warren Holiday Festival, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, had taken over Folk on the Farm, the free fall music day at Frerichs Farms on Kinnicutt Avenue, with full sponsorship from Blount Fine Foods.

The folk day was set for Sunday, September 27. As a nor'easter approached, organizers cancelled it, and EastBayRI reported it would not be rescheduled. The next Folk on the Farm is already set for October 3, 2027. Before the cancellation, Uriah Donnelly, who started the folk festival, told EastBayRI that the new organizers were steering it toward families:

"I think Holiday Fest is trying to gear more towards families for this, similar to their wonderful tree lighting event in November."

The storm took the committee's fall event, so Thanksgiving weekend is the one big event it will hold in 2026.

Three weeks of Market Street and Main Street before the lights

The same venues are busy before Thanksgiving. Tonight, Thursday, November 5, The Collaborative at 508 Main St. opens a show of figurative painting and portraiture by Grace Taşel, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m., per Discover Warren.

A week later, Imago Gallery at 36 Market St. opens "Radiant Winter," a group show running November 12 through December 20. The artist reception is Saturday, November 14, from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m., with refreshments and Cathy Clasper Torch. The show will still be up when the instrument petting zoo arrives on the 28th.

If you're hosting family that Thanksgiving weekend, our team at Lizbeth Kirwin is glad to help you plan around both lightings, from the Friday walk up Baker Street to the Saturday trolley loop that ends at Burr's Hill Park. Speak With a Local Agent, and we'll share how we'd spend the weekend in Warren.