Collingwood Santa Claus Parade 2026: Date and Where to Stay

Collingwood opens its holiday season with one downtown evening: the Santa Claus Parade rolls down Hurontario Street at 5 pm, the merchants hold open houses along the route, carolers and strolling entertainers work the sidewalks, and the night ends with the official lighting of the town Christmas tree at 97 Hurontario Street. The Downtown BIA then keeps the season going with Visit with Santa afternoons at 84 Hurontario Street on the Saturdays that follow — November 28, December 5, December 12 and December 19, 2026, from noon to 3 pm.

The BIA lists the Christmas Season Launch for Saturday, November 21, 2026, an all-day downtown event with the parade stepping off at 5 pm. In 2025 the parade fell on November 15 and an outdoor Christmas Market ran on Friday evenings from November 28 through December 29; the 2026 market schedule had not been posted when we checked on September 22, 2026, so watch the BIA events calendar if a Friday market matters to your plans.

Downtown Collingwood is about 15 minutes by car from our chalet cluster at 104 Brooker Boulevard — east along Highway 26 and into Hurontario Street. Aqua Villa on the bay is a similar quarter-hour drive, and the 44L in Tyrolean Village is a few minutes closer. Parade evenings fill the downtown lots early, so plan to park a few blocks out and walk in, and leave before the tree lighting only if you want to beat the outbound crowd on Highway 26.

Late November is a shoulder weekend at the mountain: the resort’s opening day varies by year (it was December 9 in 2025), so this is a weekend for the parade, the Village’s early holiday lights, downtown shopping and a long evening in the private hot tub rather than a ski weekend. Standard two-night minimums apply rather than holiday-period ones, and availability is far better than the Christmas block three weeks later, which makes it the easy weekend for grandparents and small children to see Santa without the peak-season crush.

A family with young kids fits any of our family chalets — bunk rooms downstairs, queen bedrooms on the main level, kitchen and living room upstairs. Households combining for the season’s first outing take the sleeps-14 chalets or book two adjacent chalets. If you would rather fold the parade into a longer holiday stay, start from the Christmas rentals page; for a plain two-night trip, the weekend rentals page covers the basics.

Earlier in the autumn, Meaford’s Scarecrow Invasion parade along Sykes Street is the region’s other small-town procession for young children.