Dandridge Saves Saturdays for Main Street and Sundays for the Ice Rink This Holiday Season

Dandridge's 2026 holiday season starts with Merriment on Main on Saturday, November 28, and ends with a skate session behind Town Hall on Sunday, January 3, 2027. In between, there's something on the Town of Dandridge event calendar every weekend for six weekends straight. Saturdays go to Main Street events, Sundays go to the synthetic ice rink at 131 E. Main Street, and one Tuesday evening is set aside for the courthouse tree.

Most of it happens within a short walk of Town Hall. The two exceptions start at Maury Middle School, and both end up downtown. So the season is easiest to plan as a standing weekend habit, not one marked date.

Six weekends at a glance

Laid out like this, the shape is clear. The Saturday schedule wraps up with the parade on December 19. The Sunday rink keeps going for two more weekends, through the week after Christmas and into the New Year.

Thanksgiving weekend sets the pattern

The season opens the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Merriment on Main takes over Main Street between Gay and Church streets on November 28, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., with shopping, activities and "A Highland Cow Christmas Story." It runs just four hours and ends early in the afternoon, so it fits easily into a weekend that is often already full with family and leftovers.

The next day sets up the routine for the rest of the season. The first ice skating session opens on November 29 from noon to 6 p.m., on the synthetic rink behind Dandridge Town Hall at 131 E. Main Street, for $2. The December 6 session is listed with the same hours and price, and the series continues every Sunday through January 3.

Then comes the one weeknight event. The Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony takes place Tuesday, December 1, from 6:30 to 7 p.m. on the steps of the Jefferson County Courthouse. It lasts half an hour on a school night. That's short enough to catch after supper and still be home for the evening.

Two Saturdays start at Maury Middle School

Two of the Saturday events begin outside the historic district and head into it, both from Maury Middle School.

The first is Reindeer Run 2026 on December 5. It starts at Maury Middle School, runs into downtown, costs $15 and benefits Shop With A Cop. At $15, the entry fee is more than seven times the $2 listed for an opening-weekend skate session.

Two weeks later comes the biggest crowd of the season. The Dandridge Fire Department's Annual Christmas Parade steps off Saturday, December 19, at 1 p.m. Lineup starts at 11 a.m. at Maury Middle School, and the route runs into downtown by way of Highway 25/70, Gay Street and Main Street. With two hours between lineup and step-off, and the route ending on the same blocks as the rink, parade day and the December 20 skate session fit together into one weekend.

December 12 is the longest day downtown

One Saturday packs in two events with a one-hour break between them. The Cookie Crawl in Historic Downtown Dandridge runs December 12 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and the Town calendar places it at Dandridge Town Hall. At 5 p.m., Candlelight Shopping and Carriage Rides starts and runs until 8, with horse-drawn carriage rides through the historic district.

The format from past years shows how the day works. In 2023, a Visit Jefferson County holiday guide described the crawl as sampling cookies from shops around historic downtown, and anyone who finished the route was entered in a drawing for a cookie basket. That same 2023 guide described the evening as candlelight open houses with treats and shopping specials, plus carriage rides provided by the Town of Dandridge. The Town's own description that year said it hosted the combined activities, with homemade cookies at participating local shops. Those are 2023 details, so check the 2026 listings for the current route.

Ten hours on the same few blocks means you'll want somewhere to sit down. Downtown has a few spots that work as a home base between the crawl and the candlelight hour:

• Blue Smoke Java Co., 125 E. Meeting Street. This is downtown's newest café. Owner-operator Katie Skaggs and her husband Caleb cut the ribbon on October 13, 2026, and Mayor Mike Chambers spoke at the opening, according to The Jefferson County Post. The holidays will be its first season. Details are on the Blue Smoke Java Co. site.
• Martha's Market, 149 E. Main Street. It's a general store and café a short walk from Town Hall, and it posts current hours on its website.
• The Shoppes at Roper Mansion. Antiques, art galleries and specialty goods inside the historic Roper Mansion, according to a 2026 Visit Jefferson County feature.
• Meeting Street Boutiques, in part of the former Thomas Tavern at 101 E. Meeting Street, per the same feature.

All four are in historic downtown, so you can walk from the crawl to the candlelight hour without moving the car.

The rink keeps the season going after the parade

After December 19, the Saturday schedule is over. The rink isn't. Sessions continue on December 20 and 27, then wrap up on January 3, 2027. The rink is open the Sunday after Christmas, when visiting family is still in town and school is out.

This isn't the rink's first winter. A Town listing shows it running by December 19, 2024, at $2 per person. The opening-weekend 2026 sessions are listed at the same $2, so a family of four can skate an afternoon for $8.

For a quieter break between rink visits, try the half-mile gravel greenway along Douglas Lake, which opened in June 2026. It starts at Dandridge Memorial Library, 1235 Circle Drive, and has benches and a picnic table along the way, as the Standard Banner reported. We looked at how that trail was funded in an earlier post on the Dandridge greenway.

A weekday option for the rest of December

Not every holiday outing has to land on a weekend. Shepard Inn, a bed-and-breakfast on E. Main Street, holds weekly public luncheons on Thursdays from February through December, according to Visit Jefferson County. That adds a midweek option on the same street as the rink and the Merriment on Main blocks for every week through the end of the year. If you'd rather start your Sunday skate with coffee outside the historic district, a 2026 Visit Jefferson County roundup lists Snowbird Coffee among Dandridge's coffee shops.

All of these events are scheduled listings, and dates or times can shift with the weather. Check the Town of Dandridge calendar before you head downtown on any given weekend.

Six weekends of skating, carriage rides and cookie stops are a good way to see the difference between living a few blocks from Town Hall and living a short drive out by the lake. If you're curious what your own Dandridge home is worth this season, from the historic district to the Douglas Lake shoreline, Jennifer Scates Group can walk you through it. Start with a Free Home Valuation, or explore more on our Dandridge neighborhood page.