For nine winters, Georgetown's big holiday draw was GLOW, the light-art installations that pulled people through the neighborhood after dark. The Georgetown BID put GLOW on hiatus in 2025. On its GLOW page, it said it was exploring "new partnerships for it and other events," and ran the second annual Georgetown Jingle on December 6 instead: 10 musical performances at 10 outdoor locations. This year the Jingle is gone too. The BID's 2026 holiday program is a new event called Deck the Alleys.
The schedule has changed with it. Deck the Alleys is on the BID calendar for two Saturdays, December 5 and December 12, from 3 to 6 p.m. Several other Georgetown organizations have also put their holiday events on December 5. That gives one afternoon more events than a person can attend. The way to handle it is to notice that almost everything on December 5 happens again, either the next day or a week later. The two events at House of Sweden do not.
What Deck the Alleys is
The BID describes the event as "festive lights, live music, cozy food and drinks, crafts for all ages, and more free merriment in three of Georgetown's most charming alleys and courtyards." It adds that dozens of restaurants and retailers will offer discounts, refreshments and pop-ups around the neighborhood. GLOW ran for weeks of evenings, and the Jingle was one Saturday of street music. Deck the Alleys is a free afternoon, repeated once, set in Georgetown's smaller spaces and paired with in-store deals. The details are on the BID's Deck the Alleys page.
Georgetown Main Street runs on the same two Saturdays. Its Cookie Tour runs from 1 to 5 p.m. on December 5, and December 12 is its second weekend. The tour pairs local bakeries with small retailers, and attendees fill their own box of cookies as they shop for gifts. The two events overlap on purpose. Both send people into small shops on Saturday afternoons, and both happen twice.
December 5, hour by hour
Here is the Saturday as the listings stand:
- 10 a.m. to noon: VIP hours at the Swedish Holiday Market, House of Sweden, 2900 K Street NW. Tickets are $20 and capped at 500. They include free fika or mulled cider and two raffle drawings, at 10:45 and 11:45.
- Noon to 4 p.m.: General admission at the same market, $15. Children 12 and under get in free, and fika comes with every ticket.
- 1 to 3 p.m.: Holiday Tea & Tour, about the Peter family's Christmas traditions, on the BID calendar. Tudor Place lists a festive tea with sweets and sandwiches, followed by a house tour, on both December 5 and 6.
- 1 to 5 p.m.: Cookie Tour, weekend one.
- 3 to 6 p.m., per the BID calendar: Deck the Alleys, first date.
- 4 p.m.: Dumbarton Concerts' A Celtic Christmas at Historic Dumbarton Church, 3133 Dumbarton Street NW. In-person tickets are $50.
- 5 p.m.: The Lucia procession on the steps of House of Sweden. It is free.
That is seven entries in seven hours, from the K Street waterfront up to Dumbarton Street. The events go uphill and back down again, and four of them fall between 3 and 5 p.m.
Most of Saturday happens again
Next to each event, list the next time it runs:
| Event | December 5 | Runs again |
|---|---|---|
| Deck the Alleys | 3 to 6 p.m. on the BID calendar | Saturday, Dec. 12 |
| Cookie Tour | 1 to 5 p.m. | Saturday, Dec. 12 |
| Tudor Place holiday tea and tour | Listed | Sunday, Dec. 6 |
| A Celtic Christmas, Dumbarton Church | 4 p.m. | Sunday, Dec. 6, 4 p.m. |
| Swedish Holiday Market | 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. | No second date listed |
| Lucia procession | 5 p.m. | No second date listed |
Four of the six events have another date within a week. A Celtic Christmas also offers a $14 livestream for the Sunday performance, so you can watch it from home. The Swedish Holiday Market and the Lucia procession are the only events on the list that happen once.
So build December 5 around House of Sweden. Move the concert and the Tudor Place tea to Sunday, or move the alleys and the cookie box to the 12th. Then shop the market, step out for the alleys if you want a break, and be back on K Street at 5.
The waterfront end of the afternoon
The market's closing rules decide how the end of the day goes. The SWEA DC listing says last admission is at 4 p.m., and adds:
"ALL ATTENDEES HAVE TO BE OUT OF THE BUILDING BY 4:45 PM IN PREPARATION FOR THE SAINT LUCIA PROCESSION TO FOLLOW"
The market is hosted by the Swedish Women's Educational Association DC Chapter with the Embassy of Sweden. It sells Nordic crafts, Swedish glass, books and Scandinavian food, and the folklore musicians Washington Spelmanslag perform during the day. If you arrive at 3:59, you get about 45 minutes inside. Then everyone moves outside to wait for the 5 p.m. procession, which is free and open to everyone, with children encouraged to come.
When the procession ends, the next stop is a short walk west on the same street. The Washington Harbour ice rink at 3000–3050 K Street NW opens for the season on Thursday, November 19, and runs through February 28, 2027, weather permitting. Admission is $12 for adults and $10 for children 12 and under, seniors and military, and skate rental is $8. In November and December the rink opens at 11 a.m. It closes at 8:30 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and at 10:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. On December 5, then, you can follow the Lucia procession with more than five hours of skating on the same block. Full details are on The Washington Harbour's skating page.
The weeknights handle the rest
With the Saturdays this full, the quieter holiday events fall on weeknights, and several are free:
- Tuesday, Dec. 1, 5:30 to 7 p.m.: The Fairmont Washington, D.C., Georgetown holds its 23rd annual holiday tree lighting in its Courtyard and Colonnade. Admission is free, with live choral music and seasonal refreshments.
- Wednesday, Dec. 2, 6:30 to 8 p.m.: Wax to Watts: Illuminating History, an evening program on the history of lighting that draws on Tudor Place's collection. It repeats Saturday, Dec. 12.
- Friday, Dec. 4, 5 p.m.: Georgetown University's Christmas Tree Lighting on Dahlgren Quad, with holiday music, hot cocoa and cookies.
- Wednesday, Dec. 9, 10:15 a.m.: Tudor Tots: L is for Light, for children 18 months to four years old and their caregivers. It covers candles, mirrors, windows and the year Tudor Place got electricity.
- Thursday and Friday, Dec. 10 and 11, 7:30 p.m.: The Cyrus Chestnut Trio plays A Charlie Brown Christmas at Dumbarton. In-person tickets are $60, and the Friday show has a $14 livestream.
Dumbarton Church has one more concert on the second Saturday. Helicon: Winter Solstice plays December 12 at 4 and 7:30 p.m., with $50 in-person tickets and a $14 livestream for the evening show. The later show lets you spend the 12th at Deck the Alleys and the Cookie Tour, then walk up to Dumbarton Street afterward.
Where the shopping happens
Deck the Alleys and the Cookie Tour both depend on retailers, and Georgetown has gained several since early fall. Spicewalla's second shop, at 1317 Wisconsin Avenue NW next to East Fork, was scheduled to open November 6. It sells spices, blends, gift sets and pantry items from local makers. Down the hill, Dutch Darlings Stroopwafels & Sweets opened October 2 at 1003 Wisconsin Avenue NW. On M Street, Pop Mart is at 3221 M Street NW, Garage Clothing opened at 3295 M Street NW, and Rag & Bone has combined its men's and women's shops at 3034 M Street NW. The Georgetowner reported all of these in its October business column. Olli, a frozen Greek yogurt shop, is newly at 1624 Wisconsin Avenue NW. Dolcezza Gelato is due back at 1300 Wisconsin Avenue NW in late fall or early winter, according to The Georgetowner.
If you want to get your gift shopping done before the alleys get busy, the BID calendar has Small Business Saturday on November 28, a week before Deck the Alleys starts. Pick up spice sets and stroopwafels that day, and December 5 is left for House of Sweden.
If relatives are staying with you in December and you're working out which Saturday to give them, Stacy Berman and team are glad to compare notes on the neighborhood's calendar. We follow Georgetown's openings and events closely too.
