If you walk the Advent Window Walk on Tuesday, December 1, how many windows will be lit? One. By Tuesday, December 15, you can see fifteen homes plus a nonprofit display, and none of them are on King Street. That's how this event works. It's an advent calendar laid over six blocks of historic downtown Lancaster, and the 2026 order of reveals decides which streets you'll see lit on the night you go.
A calendar that opens one house at a time
The organizers call it "a living advent calendar in historic downtown Lancaster." From December 1 to Christmas Eve, one new window lights up each night, and every lit window stays on display from 6 to 10 p.m. through December 31. Visit Fairfield County's event page puts it this way: by Christmas, 24 homes will be lit, along with displays from local nonprofits for Hanukkah, Christmas and Kwanzaa.
The idea came from Switzerland. In a feature for the New Castle News, co-creators Enrique Jimenez and Joseph Taylor said they got the idea from Rick Steves' European Christmas special, which showed the Adventsfenster custom in the Swiss village of Gimmelwald. Taylor told the paper, "As far as we know, no other town in the U.S. other than Lancaster organizes a resident-based Adventsfenster." Visit Fairfield County's 2025 fact sheet called 2025 the fourth annual walk.
For planning purposes, the reveal dates jump from street to street, so the date you walk decides which blocks are lit.
How the 2026 list spreads across six streets
The organizers have posted the 2026 list of windows, which pairs every reveal date with a house. The house numbers are on their site. This table groups the 24 residential reveals by street, which shows the pattern at a glance:
| Street | Residential windows | 2026 reveal dates |
|---|---|---|
| East Mulberry Street | 8 | Dec. 4, 6, 7, 8, 11, 14, 15, 19 |
| East Wheeling Street | 6 | Dec. 1, 10, 13, 16, 22, 23 |
| King Street | 4 | Dec. 17, 18, 21, 24 |
| North High Street | 3 | Dec. 2, 5, 9 |
| South High Street | 2 | Dec. 3, 12 |
| Chestnut Street | 1 | Dec. 20 |
North High Street finishes first, with all three of its windows lit by December 9. East Mulberry is the busiest street on the walk, and seven of its eight windows are lit by December 15. King Street doesn't start until December 17, and it ends the season with the Christmas Eve window.
Mulberry fills first, King Street waits
That sequence changes what a walk looks like across the month.
Early December belongs to High Street and the west end of Mulberry. On Saturday, December 5, there are five residential windows to see, one each on East Wheeling and South High, two on North High and one on East Mulberry. The Hanukkah display at the Decorative Arts Center of Ohio, revealed December 4, also counts toward that night.
Mid-December is when Mulberry fills in. If you walk on the evening of December 15, 15 of its 24 homes are lit, and seven of them are on East Mulberry. A short loop covering Mulberry, Wheeling and High catches nearly everything lit that night.
The last week moves to King Street. Four of the final eight reveals are King Street homes, and two late East Wheeling windows land on December 22 and 23. By the night of December 24, every residential window is lit. The New Castle News feature describes that full walk as "three parallel streets and one perpendicular section" that takes about 30 minutes.
Pick your night by what you want to see. To see all 24 homes, go any night from December 24 through December 31. To see the two nonprofit windows revealed after Christmas Eve as well, go from December 26 through December 31. For a particular street at its fullest, go after its last reveal date in the table above.
The reveal is a one-night event
Seeing all 24 windows at once is one way to do the walk. A reveal night is different. In the New Castle News account, visitors gather outside that night's house, then "lights go up, curtains are drawn or shutters open to reveal the holiday-themed creation." The paper added that one-third to one-half of the homeowners invite visitors inside for refreshments. Visit Fairfield County's 2025 fact sheet also notes that some participants hold open houses on their night. Each of those is tied to one date. Once a window is revealed, it stays lit through December 31, but the gathering on its reveal night happens only once.
The windows themselves vary a lot. "Some of the windows are simple and basic; others are elaborate and ornate and some even have moving parts," Taylor told the paper. Residents who want to take part but can't build a display themselves can get help from volunteers. The 2025 theme was "Pop Culture Christmas." Visit Fairfield County lists the 2026 theme as "coming soon."
A sign with a QR code at each house links to its history, a behind-the-scenes video and windows from past years. These pages are worth reading. The East Wheeling Street home that opens the walk on December 1 has a write-up by Jimenez. It says William L. Martin bought the house in 1872, and his daughter Mary Jane was married there to Richard Outcalt, who created the Buster Brown comic strip. The paper also said the third-night window the year before its visit was in a home where the wife and children of Civil War General William Sherman once lived. "The homes involved are almost entirely historic from the Georgian, Victorian or Edwardian era," Jimenez told the New Castle News.
Three windows that aren't homes
Three local nonprofits fill the dates around the residential windows, and their buildings have long histories of their own.
- Hanukkah at the Decorative Arts Center of Ohio, December 4. The display goes up in the Saylor House. The walk's page for it dates the house's design to the 1790s and says William Reese bought it in 1834. If you're going inside, the center's quilt exhibition "Color Improvisations 3" runs through January 3, 2027.
- Christmas at the Fairfield County Foundation, December 25. The walk's page for the building calls its 1805 one-story brick section Ohio's oldest surviving brick structure.
- Kwanzaa at the Fairfield County District Library, December 26. According to the walk's page, the library's history room uses the original front door of the demolished Effinger house.
The Foundation and library windows go up after Christmas Eve, so every display in the walk is lit only from December 26 through December 31.
Building an evening around it
The walk takes less than half an hour, and the rest of downtown is open around it. Here's what to know:
- Hours and parking. Windows are lit from 6 to 10 p.m. Park on the street or in the surface lot at 163 E. Wheeling St.
- Viewing from the car. Visit Fairfield County's fact sheet says the windows can be seen from a car if you'd rather stay out of the cold. Watch for traffic if you do.
- Pairing it with WinterFest. Destination Downtown Lancaster's WinterFest & Tree Lighting runs from noon to 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, December 5, at 104 N. Broad St. It has carriage rides, Santa and holiday music. The windows light up half an hour after it ends, and a North High Street reveal is on the list for that night. WinterFest is also where the winners of the Lancaster Holiday Spirit Trail window contest are announced. In that contest, downtown shops and restaurants decorate their windows and visitors vote by scanning QR codes.
- Weekend reveals. In 2026, Saturday and Sunday reveals fall on December 5, 6, 12, 13, 19 and 20. Those nights are on North High, East Mulberry, South High, East Wheeling, East Mulberry again and Chestnut.
You can eat before or after a few blocks away. Visit Fairfield County lists these hours for downtown spots:
- Ale House 1890, 149 W. Main St.: open until 11 p.m. Monday through Thursday and until midnight Friday and Saturday. Closed Sunday.
- El Parian Steaks & Tequila, 123 N. Broad St.: open until 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 9 p.m. Sunday.
- Double Edge Brewing Co., 158 W. Chestnut St.: open until 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday and Sunday, and until 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
- JB's Downtown Grill, 111 N. Columbus St.: open until 8 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday and until 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Plan ahead on other nights, when it closes earlier.
- Square Seven Coffee House, 150 W. Main St.: open until 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Good for something warm before a weekend walk.
For updates once December starts, follow the walk on Facebook and Instagram. Share your photos with #AdventWindowWalk.
The homes on this walk are a big part of why downtown Lancaster feels the way it does in December. Many are Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian houses whose owners keep their history alive and open their windows to the town each year. If you have questions about the historic homes downtown, or about the streets in this post, Cory M Neville is glad to talk them through with you. Let's Connect.
