The Church Hill Association's Holiday Weekend has two main events. The Candlelight Walk from Jefferson Park to Libby Hill Park on Friday night is free and open to the public. The Holiday House Tour on Sunday, December 6, now in its 60th year, sells tickets, and it is the event that keeps the walk free. It also pays for a good share of the trees, mulch and park repairs the association funds the rest of the year. Organizer Ellen Jenkins told Church Hill Lookout in September that "The Holiday House Tour is the primary revenue driver," and that most of the association's other events, the candlelight walk included, "are completely free. The house tour allows us to do that."
This year's tour was still short of houses as of late September, with roughly half as many stops lined up as the 2025 tour ended up with. That number shapes more of the neighborhood's year than one Sunday afternoon.
How the Weekend Fits Together
The association calls the Holiday Weekend its longest-running neighborhood celebration and its biggest annual fundraiser. It happens every first weekend in December. In 2026 the schedule runs like this:
| When | What | Where | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| First weekend of December | Red ribbons go up on the historic street lamps | Across the neighborhood | Not applicable |
| Fri., Dec. 4, 6:45 p.m. or 7:00 p.m. | Community Vespers, optional start for the walk | St. Patrick Church or St. John's Church | Not listed |
| Fri., Dec. 4, 7:30 p.m. | Candlelight Walk, led by the Greater Richmond Pipes & Drums | Starts at Jefferson Park, stops at St. John's, ends at Libby Hill Park around 8:00 p.m. | Free |
| Sun., Dec. 6, noon to 5:00 p.m. | 60th Annual Holiday House Tour | Homes, shops and institutions across Church Hill | $35 advance, $40 day of |
The walk ends at Libby Hill Park with caroling, live music, and food and beverage vendors. You can bring your own candle or pick up a battery-operated one in the park. The association has posted a 2026 walk map on its Holiday Weekend page.
House tour tickets go on sale online November 1 at $35. You can also buy them at Union Market, The Hill Cafe and Second Bottle. On the day, tickets cost $40 at the St. John's Church Parish Hall, which is also where online buyers pick up theirs. The association provides transportation between stops, though it notes that many guests walk. All proceeds go to its grants program.
What the Money Bought in 2025
The association publishes its own account of what it supports, and the 2025 list is where the ticket money shows up in places you pass every week.
- Street trees. 208 new street trees planted across greater Church Hill.
- Chimborazo Park. 94 trees planted.
- Libby Hill Park. Eight trees, 35 cubic yards of mulch and 1,000 daffodils.
- Patrick Henry Park. Funding for a planting plan.
- Local partners. Financial support for 12 organizations, including Capital Trees, Church Hill Trees, the East End Festival, Franklin Military Academy, the James River Association, Oakwood Arts, Robinson Theater, the Reed Square Foundation, The Pocahontas Project and Woodville Elementary.
- Schools. Health packages for five East End elementary schools, teacher-appreciation treats for five schools without functioning PTAs, and a school-supplies drive that benefited 12 schools and organizations.
The best-documented project is at the end of the Candlelight Walk route. The Libby Hill Park House restoration is estimated at about $85,000. In 2024, the association's Parks and Beautification Committee raised $10,126 to replace the building's windows. In May 2025, Historic Richmond's board approved a $10,000 challenge grant, on the condition that the association raise another $10,000 to match it. If the match came through, the association would have $30,000 for the project, which together with City of Richmond funds would make the full restoration feasible "in a time of budget constraints." The association's 2025 impact summary lists the match as met and says it brought in more than $20,000 in new funds. The project description further down the same page still refers to a match campaign being launched. Either way, the people gathering at Libby Hill on the night of December 4 will be standing next to a building that holiday-weekend money has helped repair.
The association describes its grants as annual and special-cause donations that members approve and the board administers, and it says they depend on how well its fundraising goes. That makes the grant budget a direct function of the weekend's results. Before last year's tour, Church Hill Lookout reported that the association hoped to net $11,000 from the holiday weekend, and that the 2024 weekend had beaten that target. At $35 each, $11,000 is the face value of about 315 advance tickets, before any costs.
The 60th Tour Is Still Recruiting Houses
Ticket demand is only half the equation. The tour also needs homeowners willing to open their doors, and the 2026 list was still filling in this fall.
Church Hill Lookout reported on September 26 that Jenkins had seven homeowners committed, plus an eighth that fellow volunteer Wendy Parent-Johnson said was definitely participating. Another seven were still deciding. For comparison, the 2025 tour had 16 stops. Nine of them were private homes, and the rest included Bellevue School, St. Patrick Catholic Church and the MediaNoche boutique.
Jenkins made a case for hosting that goes beyond charity. In the same Lookout piece, she described the tour as "an opportunity to show off your house," whether the draw is the art, the decorating or the holiday decorations. She also said hosts sometimes learn their own home's history when a visitor walks in and says, "Oh, my grandmother lived here, let me tell you all this stuff." Participating households get a free association membership and tickets to the tour.
If you want to host, you can contact Jenkins at [email protected]. She said a list of homeowners who would do it next year helps too. If you rent or would rather not host, you can volunteer as a docent instead. Docents walk ticket-holders through a house in shifts on December 6 and get free tickets to use when they are off duty. The association's volunteer sign-up covers both the house tour and the Friday events.
Two New Stops This Year
Some of the 2026 route is already settled. Two of the stops are new, and both are buildings whose own histories are about reuse.
Richmond Hill, near the Church Hill Overlook, is joining the route for the first time. Historic Richmond dates the start of the site's building to 1810 and identifies its styles as Romanesque Revival and Italianate. It notes that the Palmer-Taylor House on the site was built in 1859. From 1866 to 1987, the Sisters of the Visitation ran the Monte Maria convent there, and in 1987 it became an ecumenical retreat center. Richmond Hill now describes itself as an urban monastery that carries on a prayer ministry begun in 1865. For most tour-goers, this will be their first walk through the inside of a building they have seen from the overlook for years.
Glue Craft Studio, at 401 Chimborazo Blvd., will run a make-your-own ornament bar. According to Richmond BizSense, owners Vanessa Reyes and Amy Yates opened the studio in September in a storefront that had been abandoned. They planned classes, workshops, private events and open studio time, with classes priced around $15 to $50. It is the newest addition to a run of East Marshall and Chimborazo openings we covered in Church Hill's newest storefronts.
One returning stop: Richmond Fire Department's Station 1, on North 24th Street between East Broad and East Marshall, will have its trucks decorated again this year.
Planning Around December 6
For anyone in the neighborhood, the timing works out like this:
- Now through November. If you're thinking about hosting or volunteering as a docent, reach out now, while the route is still being put together.
- November 1. Tickets go on sale online at $35, and Union Market, The Hill Cafe and Second Bottle start selling them too.
- November 21 and 22. Historic St. John's stages "Remember the Ladies!," an all-female performance of the "Liberty or Death" reenactment. It's the last big program at the church before the Holiday Weekend begins.
- Friday, December 4. Vespers at 6:45 p.m. at St. Patrick or 7:00 p.m. at St. John's, then the walk from Jefferson Park at 7:30.
- Sunday, December 6. The tour runs noon to 5:00 p.m., with day-of tickets for $40 and online-ticket pickup at the St. John's Parish Hall.
For an evening before or after the walk, our evening in Church Hill guide covers the Libby Hill end of the route.
Sixty years in, the tour still works because neighbors let other neighbors see how they live with old houses. Helping historic homes present well is the core of what we do at Chris Small Group. If the tour has you curious about your own home's story, its architecture or what it's worth, we'd be glad to talk it through. Schedule a Private Consultation.
