Park Ridge Neighbors Are Decorating Hodges Park This Year, and the Lights Stay On After Winterfest

Which part of Winterfest will still be glowing on a Tuesday in mid-December? Last year's festival filled four Black Friday hours with reindeer, fire trucks, Santa and a tree lighting across three business districts, and all of it officially ended at 9 p.m.

That changes this year in Hodges Park. Families, businesses and organizations bought trees from the Park Ridge Park District and are decorating them along the park's pathway. Each tree is fully LED-lit and carries a sign naming the household or group that decorated it. The Park District describes it as "a new holiday tradition" and a display "for all to enjoy throughout the holiday season." The lights go on at Winterfest. After that, a stretch of Uptown stays lit for weeks, and neighbors built it.

Who put the trees there

The trees were sold as $125 donations through Park Ridge Friends of the Parks. The program's page now reads "Trees are SOLD OUT for 2026!" and says all donations support the group's fundraising. Registration opened September 1 and closed November 2, and only a limited number of trees were offered.

Friends of the Parks is a fundraising organization that supports the Park District. Its mission includes recreational resources and preserving green space. Its stated vision is broader: rejuvenating parks, acquiring land for parks and developing recreational programs. Local residents serve on its board, and it also relies on volunteers and a Junior Advisory Board. So the signs along the path are a partial roster of the people and businesses who chose to pay for part of the park's holiday season.

The schedule is short:

1. Saturday, November 21. Trees are ready for decorating.
2. Wednesday, November 25. Decorating should be finished on or before this date, the day before Thanksgiving.
3. Friday, November 27. The lights are turned on during Winterfest.

Between this weekend and Thanksgiving Eve, a walk through Hodges Park means watching the display come together one tree at a time. The Park District calendar and the Stroll Park Ridge community calendar both list the Holiday Tree Trimming event for 6 to 9 p.m. on November 27.

Why Hodges Park was already the center of the night

The trees went into the one Winterfest location that already draws the biggest single moment of the evening. In its recap of the 2025 festival, Journal & Topics reported that the City and the Park Ridge Chamber of Commerce held their tree lighting ceremony at Hodges Park at about 6:20 p.m. Santa arrived on a fire truck, and Mayor Marty Maloney welcomed him with a short speech. Once the tree at the far side of the park was lit, Santa went inside City Hall. Children wrote letters and made drawings at a Chamber craft table, and Santa posed for photos in the council chamber.

That was last year's format. The Chamber's listing for 2026 confirms Friday, November 27, from 5 to 9 p.m., in Uptown, South Park and North Park. The Chamber's Winterfest page asks visitors to "be sure to visit all three business districts." This year, the walk to the tree lighting will pass a row of decorated, lit, neighbor-signed trees.

Journal & Topics also explained why the festival falls on Black Friday: the Chamber built it to bring customers to Park Ridge small businesses and to mark the shift from Thanksgiving to the winter holidays. The City Council agreed to reimburse the Chamber up to $10,000 for 2025 Winterfest expenses.

Three districts, four hours, and last year's trolley lines

The 2025 festival was the first to include North Park, after years of being held in Uptown and South Park. According to the same Journal & Topics report, each district had its own draw:

• North Park: families took photos with two live reindeer at Olson's Ace Hardware, 700 N. Northwest Hwy.
• South Park: the Grinch posed for photos at Ash & Willow Eco Salon, 610 Devon Ave. A few blocks west, Fire Station 35 at Devon and Cumberland opened its garage so families could take pictures with the fire trucks, and firefighters handed out snacks, drinks, coloring books and school supplies.
• Uptown: the tree lighting, Santa's arrival, and the craft table and photos inside City Hall.

Chamber Executive Director Jackie Mathews told the paper she was happy with the turnout:

"I think we got a few thousand. There were so many people in South Park, so many people in North Park."

Moving between districts was harder. The Chamber had previously run trolley-style buses between Uptown and South Park. Adding a North Park stop lengthened each loop, and even with four trolleys instead of the usual three, demand outran the buses. At 7 p.m., Journal & Topics counted 80 people waiting in Uptown, and volunteers from the Park Ridge Citizen Patrol helped keep the line moving. Mathews acknowledged the problem afterward: "Thank goodness we had four, but we had much greater need than trolleys."

Public transit ended early that night as well. The paper noted that Pace connected Uptown and South Park, but the last Route 209 bus serving the stop near Olson's Ace passed Hodges Park at 7:22 p.m., and the last return trip passed the store a little before 7. Those were 2025 times, so check Pace's current schedule before relying on a late bus.

Last year's report suggests a few ways to plan this year's evening, based on the 2025 layout.

The Hodges Park trees help most with that last row. Families who skip the trolleys entirely can still see the part of Winterfest that lasts longest, since the trees stay lit after the festival ends.

The weekend after, and the rest of December

Saturday, November 28, is Small Business Saturday on the Chamber's calendar, the day after Winterfest. On a walk to Uptown shops that weekend, the trees will already be lit.

The Park District's holiday calendar fills the next four weeks, beginning the Sunday before Thanksgiving. Some listings include locations and some do not yet, so the table below shows what the district has posted:

Saturday, December 12, is the busiest day on the calendar. The Santa Trail at Maine Park runs that morning, and the 3rd Annual Park Ridge Christmas Stroll fills Uptown from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. with entertainment, caroling, crafts and Santa. The stroll is the second large Uptown gathering of the season, and it falls about two weeks after the lights go on. Families can visit the tree they decorated and see how it has held up, and everyone else can walk the row by daylight.

Full details and registration for Park District events are on the Park Ridge Park District events page. Updates on Winterfest and Small Business Saturday come from the Park Ridge Chamber of Commerce.

Over thirty years in this market, Cornelia has seen that the community calendar shapes how buyers come to know a place, and that a home photographed during a December like this one tells much of that story on its own. If the season has you thinking about what your Park Ridge home is worth, or about timing a sale for spring, Cornelia Matache offers a complimentary home valuation and an expert, no-pressure consultation, in English or Romanian.