By the Saturday after Thanksgiving, Alys Beach, WaterColor, Seaside and Panama City Beach will all have lit their trees. Their dates and times are already posted. Watersound's own holiday celebration has a page on watersound.com, and that page currently reads "0 events found."
That gap shapes the season for anyone living at Watersound Beach. The neighboring towns put their lightings on Friday, Nov. 27, and Saturday, Nov. 28, inside a two-day window. Winter Wonder Watersound follows a later December calendar, and last year the weather canceled it twice. So the holidays you can plan this week are your neighbors'. Your own is still waiting on an official date.
Two days hold almost every lighting
Thanksgiving falls on Thursday, Nov. 26, this year. The events below are confirmed for the Friday and Saturday after it.
| Day | Event | Where | Time | What it costs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fri., Nov. 27 | Breakfast with Santa | Fish Out of Water at WaterColor Inn | 8 a.m. to noon | No reservations; first-come, first-served |
| Fri., Nov. 27 | Alys in Winter Wonderland | Alys Beach Amphitheatre | 4 to 6:30 p.m.; tree lighting at 6:30 | Free; Santa photos and cookie sets $3 each |
| Fri., Nov. 27 | Beach Home for the Holidays | Aaron Bessant Park, Panama City Beach | Santa Village from 3:30 p.m.; tree lighting 5:55 p.m. | Admission not stated |
| Sat., Nov. 28 | 19th Annual Old Florida Holiday & Winter Market | WaterColor Town Center and Cerulean Park | 3 to 9 p.m. | Free and open to the public |
| Sat., Nov. 28 | SEASIDE Holiday Parade & Turn on the Town | Seaside | 3 to 8 p.m. | Attendee cost not stated |
| Sat., Nov. 28 | Beach Home for the Holidays, night two | Aaron Bessant Park | Santa Village from 3:30 p.m.; symphony at 6 p.m. | Admission not stated |
Because everything is stacked into two days, you have to choose between events instead of collecting them all. On Friday evening, Panama City Beach lights its tree at 5:55 p.m. and The Band Perry takes the stage at 6. Fireworks follow at 7:30. Alys Beach lights its tree with Santa at 6:30 p.m. Those two moments are 35 minutes apart, in different counties, so one family won't see both.
Alys Beach has its own deadline before the lighting. The Merchants of Alys Beach run the afternoon from 4 p.m., with a holiday concert to open it. There are letters to Santa, face painting, holiday photos by EPIC on the splash pad, cookie decorating at $3 a set, and photos with Santa for $3. Lines for the paid activities close promptly at 5:45 p.m. so vendors can serve everyone already waiting. Families who want the Santa photo and the lighting should arrive well before 5:45, not at 6:15. The organizers also invite guests back the next day to shop the Alys Beach merchants on Small Business Saturday, and they note that details may still change.
Friday morning is the easiest part of the weekend to plan. Fish Out of Water at the WaterColor Inn hosts Breakfast with Santa from 8 a.m. to noon as a buffet. It takes no reservations, so arrival time decides your table.
Saturday's two big draws overlap almost completely. The 19th Annual Old Florida Holiday & Winter Market runs from 3 to 9 p.m. across WaterColor Town Center and Cerulean Park. It has a market, a tree lighting, Santa photos, carolers and carriage rides, and the WaterColor Community Homeowners Association keeps it free and open to the public. In Seaside, the SEASIDE Holiday Parade & Turn on the Town runs from 3 to 8 p.m. It includes a parade, an Emerald Coast Theatre Company performance, a tree lighting and Santa photos, and parade registration proceeds benefit Point Washington Medical Clinic. Both events run in the same afternoon-to-evening window on the same night, so plan on one of them.
Rosemary Beach's lighting is the one still to come
Rosemary Beach's official Tree Lighting Ceremony page still shows last year's event. It was Nov. 28, 2025, from 6 to 6:30 p.m. at South Barrett Square, organized by the Rosemary Beach Merchants Association. The page describes the Charles Dickens Carolers, Santa's arrival, the lighting itself and carriage rides.
Last year's lighting fell on the Friday after Thanksgiving. That is the same day as this year's Alys Beach lighting and the Panama City Beach opening night. A 2026 Rosemary date hasn't been published yet, so whether the lighting returns to that Friday or moves is an open question. That makes the Rosemary page worth checking again before you commit to plans for Nov. 27.
Rosemary Beach has posted something later in the season. The Rosemary Beach Foundation's Holiday Tour of Homes is set for Saturday, Dec. 5, 2026, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Guests check in at North Barrett Square, then walk a self-guided route through decorated residences and along the town's streets and boardwalks. The tour is a December event, and that hints at where the rest of eastern 30A's holiday season falls.
Watersound runs on a later December calendar
Winter Wonder Watersound is the neighborhood's own holiday celebration. Its official page describes meeting Santa, carolers, cookie decorating, letters to Santa and a children's theatre performance. It calls the event free, family-friendly and open to the public. Under that description, the event list is empty. The Watersound Origins version of the page shows only the event title. One third-party travel listing puts the 2026 event at the Pavilion at Watersound Town Center on Dec. 6 and sends readers to watersound.com for start times and admission details. Watersound itself hasn't posted that date.
Last year's history explains why the official date matters. According to a SoWal event post, the 2025 edition was first scheduled at Watersound Town Center for Sunday, Dec. 7, from 2 to 5 p.m. Weather canceled it, and it was rescheduled for Thursday, Dec. 18, from 5 to 8 p.m. That evening was canceled for weather too, and organizers said they looked forward to celebrating the following year.
Neither 2025 date tells you the 2026 date. They do show that Watersound's celebration isn't tied to the post-Thanksgiving weekend the neighboring towns use, and that its date can change after it's announced. The page has its own fix for that. The Winter Wonder listing on watersound.com offers a calendar subscription through Google Calendar, iCalendar and Outlook. Once you subscribe, the official 2026 date will show up on your own calendar when Watersound posts it, and any change will too.
What the Pavilion already has on the books
Watersound Town Center's confirmed December date is a First Friday. On Friday, Dec. 4, the First Friday Concert Series and Art Bazaar comes to the Pavilion at Watersound Town Center. The bazaar of local artists and makers opens at 4 p.m., and Michelle Malone & The Hot Toddies play free live music from 6 to 8 p.m., according to the Cultural Arts Alliance listing. The Cultural Arts Alliance, Russell Carter Artist Management and the St. Joe Community Foundation are the listed concert partners. The Watersound Town Center events page lists the same performer for that Friday. Watersound's Friday Fest page gives the evening as 6 to 9 p.m., so the listings differ on the end time.
That Friday sits right before Rosemary Beach's Saturday tour. Together they make the first weekend of December the one stretch of the season where two confirmed eastern 30A events fall on back-to-back days without overlapping. The bazaar and concert run Friday evening at the Pavilion, and the Holiday Tour of Homes runs Saturday from 11 a.m.
The confirmed calendar for the rest of December:
- Dec. 4, Friday: First Friday Concert Series and Art Bazaar at the Pavilion, Watersound Town Center, with the bazaar from 4 p.m. and music in the evening.
- Dec. 5, Saturday: Rosemary Beach Holiday Tour of Homes, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., check-in at North Barrett Square.
- Dec. 12 through Dec. 20: Complimentary Photos with Santa in SEASIDE at Seaside Christmas Village, 4 to 6 p.m.
- Dec. 12, Saturday: The Optimist Club of the Beaches' Christmas Parade at Pier Park starts at 5 p.m.
- Dec. 31, Thursday: The NYE Beach Ball Drop in Panama City Beach runs from 4 p.m. to midnight CDT, with live music and fireworks, and Watersound's own events page points neighbors to it.
Dec. 12 has another small overlap. Seaside's free Santa photos run from 4 to 6 p.m. on the same Saturday the Pier Park parade steps off at 5. Seaside repeats its Santa hours through Dec. 20, so families who want both can save the photos for another evening and keep Dec. 12 for the parade.
Where the open date could land
Put the confirmed events together and the open dates are easy to see. Thanksgiving weekend is full. The first weekend of December has the Pavilion on Friday and Rosemary Beach on Saturday. Dec. 12 has the Pier Park parade, and Seaside's Santa photos run nightly into Dec. 20. Winter Wonder Watersound has no date on its official page, and Rosemary Beach's tree lighting has none on its page either. Those are the two events still to be set, and both pages stay live for any update.
Here's a practical approach for a Watersound Beach household. Pick one evening from the Thanksgiving weekend table now, because those events are already posted, and check the organizer's page that week for any changes. Then hold the first Friday of December for the Pavilion and subscribe to the Winter Wonder calendar, so the neighborhood's own date shows up when Watersound posts it.
If you're welcoming family for the holidays or hosting friends at your Watersound Beach home this season, Geppert Beeker Group is happy to share what we know about eastern 30A's December calendar and the neighborhood around it. Schedule a Personalized Consultation, and we'll help you plan around the dates that matter to you.
