Most of the 2026 holiday calendar in the Catalina Foothills falls between Friday, Nov. 20 and Friday, Nov. 27. In those eight days, two resorts and one shopping center along Sunrise and Skyline Drives start their seasons, hold a weekend art festival, serve three different Thanksgiving meals and light a tree. December runs differently. Most of the public evenings happen on three Friday-to-Sunday weekends at Tohono Chul and end on Dec. 20. After that, nearly every date left on the calendar is a reserved table.
That makes now the time to plan, eight days before the first event.
Eight days along Sunrise and Skyline
Here is the late-November run in order, all within a short drive of each other:
- Friday, Nov. 20. Holiday Splendor begins at The Westin La Paloma and runs through Jan. 3, 2027.
- Saturday, Nov. 21. The La Encantada Fine Art Festival opens, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
- Sunday, Nov. 22. The festival's second day runs 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., and the center lists Sunday admission as free. The same day, La Encantada switches to extended holiday shopping hours, which last through Jan. 2.
- Thursday, Nov. 26. Thanksgiving, with three resort meals on staggered schedules. Details are in the next section.
- Friday, Nov. 27. La Paloma's Tree Lighting Ceremony and Holiday Art Show, which is free.
This is the part of the season with the most going on. Within eight days, the Foothills gets a two-day fine art festival at La Encantada, a resort season opening, a holiday meal you can book at 10:30 a.m., 11 a.m. or 4 p.m., and an outdoor tree lighting with local makers selling their work. None of it requires leaving the Skyline and Sunrise corridor.
Thanksgiving runs on three schedules
Thanksgiving in the Foothills isn't one reservation window. The three resort options start at different times and are built differently, so the choice comes down to what time of day suits your household more than to the menu.
| Table | Time | Format | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Canyon Club, Loews Ventana Canyon | 10:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. | Brunch | $125 adults, $42 ages 6–12, complimentary five and under |
| LA LUZ, The Westin La Paloma | 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. | Buffet | $119++ adults, $60 children 10 and under |
| Flying V, Loews Ventana Canyon | 4 to 9 p.m. | Three-course prix fixe | $95 per person, optional $45 wine pairing |
The two midday meals overlap for most of their hours. Flying V is the only one of the three that serves in the evening. That matters if you're hosting guests who fly in that morning or if the afternoon belongs to a home kitchen and a football game. Each resort sets its age cutoff differently. Loews charges a child rate for ages 6 to 12 and seats five and under free. La Paloma's child rate covers 10 and under. For a family with kids of mixed ages, that changes the total more than the headline adult price does.
La Paloma's buffet is the larger production. The resort lists chilled Gulf shrimp and snow crab, turkey and prime rib carved to order, live music, a photographer, a craft area and a Kids Corner. Reservations for LA LUZ go through OpenTable from the resort's Holiday Splendor page.
The tree lighting ends the busy stretch
The day after Thanksgiving, La Paloma's tree lighting takes over the Murphy and LA LUZ patios. The resort describes the evening as the start of its holiday season. Working with Art State Arizona, it is bringing in 15 local artisans for a holiday market, along with live music, hot cocoa, spiced cider and treats. After the tree is lit, the Reveille Men's Chorus performs.
The same evening is the unveiling of this year's gingerbread display, built by La Paloma's culinary team. It stays up all season. Last year's version, the Sonoran Gingerbread Desertscape, used 350 pounds of gingerbread and 294 pounds of brown sugar. The event is complimentary. Tucsontopia's event listing puts it on Friday, Nov. 27. Call the resort to confirm the date and start time before you go.
The art show is the reason this evening is more than a ceremony. With 15 makers on site the night after Thanksgiving, it's the earliest chance in the Foothills to buy gifts from local artists. It falls six days after the La Encantada festival. Together, the two give the corridor two art-buying weekends in a row before December begins.
A new name on Skyline Drive
La Encantada heads into the season with a new restaurant tenant. Frida American Brasserie, from owners Charles and Frida Hunt, is in the former Living Room space at 2905 E. Skyline Drive. Tucson Foodie reported in September that the owners had moved their target from August to late October.
La Encantada's directory describes Frida as an American brasserie with European influence and an emphasis on Champagne, wine and craft cocktails, open seven days a week. Tucson Foodie's early look at the menu showed French brasserie dishes, steaks and seafood, pasta, and panini and classic dishes at lunch, with a wine list built around Champagne. The owners noted that the menu could still change. The restaurant's website is taking reservations, and its booking calendar runs through November.
The timing works in its favor. A Champagne-focused room at La Encantada will see its first holiday crowd in the same week as the art festival weekend and the start of the center's extended shopping hours.
December runs on three weekends
Once Thanksgiving weekend is over, the Foothills calendar gets much narrower. The biggest public evening event of the month is Holiday Nights at Tohono Chul, and it runs only on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from 6 to 9 p.m.
- Friday, Dec. 4: Members' Night
- Dec. 5–6: Saturday and Sunday
- Dec. 11–13: Friday through Sunday
- Dec. 18–20: Friday through Sunday, the last nights of the run
That adds up to nine evenings in total, all within 17 days. Tickets are $25 for general admission, $20 for members, $10 for ages 2 to 17, and free for children under 2. Members who can't make Dec. 4 can use their discount on any of the other dates. The gardens are lit for the season, and the evenings include live music and performances, seasonal food and drinks, and holiday shopping.
After Dec. 20, no more public garden evenings are listed. Late December belongs to the resort dining rooms.
The rest of December is reserved tables
La Paloma fills in the second half of the month with dated meals, nearly all of them at LA LUZ:
- Saturday, Dec. 19: Brunch with Santa and a Gingerbread Workshop, 9 a.m. to noon, $50 adults and $25 children 10 and under.
- Thursday, Dec. 24: Christmas Eve dinner, 5 to 9 p.m., $109++ per person.
- Friday, Dec. 25: Christmas Day brunch, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., $119++ per person.
- Thursday, Dec. 31: New Year's Eve dinner at LA LUZ, 5 to 10 p.m., $129++ per person, or the countdown at Casa 71 Tequila Lounge, 10 p.m. to 1 a.m., $129++ per person.
Dec. 19 is the busiest day of the month. A household could do Santa and gingerbread at La Paloma that morning and walk Tohono Chul's lit gardens that night, on the second-to-last Holiday Nights date. Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve both fall on Thursdays this year. On both nights, La Paloma's dinner service begins at 5 p.m.
From Dec. 21 through Jan. 3, the Foothills holiday calendar comes down to three of those reserved meals and La Paloma's gingerbread display, which stays up until Holiday Splendor ends on Jan. 3. The extra hours at La Encantada run one day less, through Jan. 2.
Hosting family over the holidays often brings up bigger questions about the home itself: whether it still fits, or how a property along this corridor would show to a buyer in the new year. When those questions come up, The Bonn Team can give you a discreet, Foothills-specific read on where your home stands. Request a Confidential Market Consultation.
