With No Starlight Parade Announced, Rhinebeck's First Saturday in December Goes to the Shops

"It is hard to believe that something as unique and beloved as Sinterklaas could fall casualty to a lack of money," festival coordinator Jeanne Fleming told the Times Union last October, when organizers canceled the 2025 festival after 26 years.

A year later, the festival's official site still opens with the line "The festival is not scheduled for this year," above last year's notices. Saturday, December 5, 2026, the first Saturday of the month, now belongs to the Rhinebeck Area Chamber of Commerce. The weeks around it are carried by a theater, a historic house, a Sunday market and a historical society in Clinton, each on its own schedule. A December that once hung on one fundraising campaign now depends on many small ones.

What one Saturday used to cost

For decades, Sinterklaas was held on the first Saturday of December to informally mark the feast of Saint Nicholas, and it ended with a children's starlight parade carrying large illuminated stars. The Times Union traces its origin to a gap of its own. The festival began after a craft fair moved out of town and locals wanted something new to keep the village busy during the holidays.

The money behind it explains why it was fragile. According to the festival's own background page, the free event needed about $125,000. Small donors, grants and star sales typically supplied only about half, and the rest depended on benefactors. Star sales alone accounted for about one-fifth of the budget, the Times Union reported. When tariffs nearly tripled the price of the imported stars and lights, and grant funding fell away, that half came apart.

The strain had already shown. The 2024 parade was replaced by a smaller event of dance performances and dioramas by local artists. In 2025, after the cancellation, the crew put together "Dances with the Polar Bear" on Saturday, December 20, from 2 to 4 p.m. in the Foster's Coach House parking lot, with Sinterklaas characters and a carol sing, as the Daily Freeman reported. The organizers thanked the Bender family and Foster's for hosting.

December 5 has a new organizer

The Chamber describes its event as new: the Holiday Shop Crawl, Carolers & Window Display Competition, set for the first Saturday of December. It adds the Victorian Traditional Carolers, who visit shops and other stops around the village before a fireside finale, and this year a Tree and Menorah Lighting with crafts and family activities. Its program comes from what the participating shops themselves offer, so it rests on the village's existing storefronts rather than one large production budget.

The event listing puts the carolers at 3 to 5 p.m., with retailers running special offers, treats and family activities all day. The 2026 locations are still to be announced. For reference, last year's route started at Foster's Coach House and ended at the Beekman Arms.

Other organizations have filled in the rest of the day. As currently listed, December 5 runs like this:

1. 11 a.m. A Christmas Carol, presented by the CENTER Players in the CENTER for Performing Arts at Rhinebeck Saturday morning family series.
2. All day Participating shops and restaurants run the Chamber's offers and activities.
3. 2:30 p.m. The CENTER's Saturday matinee of Disney's Frozen, which runs December 4, 2026 through January 17, 2027, at 661 Route 308.
4. 3 to 5 p.m. Carolers make their way through the village.
5. 4 p.m. The Northern Dutchess Symphony Orchestra performs "Sounds of the Season: Santa Baby!" at the Joseph L. Phelan Auditorium at Rhinebeck High School. Tickets are on the orchestra's site.

That adds up to a full Saturday, run by four organizations instead of one committee.

The five weeks before it run on smaller calendars

The same pattern holds through November. No single event anchors the month. Several institutions with their own seasons overlap, and on some days they line up.

There are two caveats. The CENTER's pages for Come From Away and Frozen showed the listed performances as sold out, so check the box office before planning around either. Starr listings can also change, so the Upstate Films schedule is the place to confirm.

The Rhinebeck Farmers' Market runs every Sunday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the municipal parking lot, with a season listed through December 27, 2026. Each November Sunday gives its booth to a different community group, and the December dates are still marked TBA.

In Clinton, November closes out Rev250

The Clinton side of the season has its own reason for the calendar. The Town of Clinton Historical Society opened the Creek Meeting House one Sunday a month this year to mark America's 250th anniversary: July 12, August 9, September 13, October 11 and November 8. That makes Sunday, November 8 the last of the five 2026 dates. It also falls on a market Sunday, so the morning in the village and the 1 to 4 p.m. tour fit into the same day.

Two days earlier, the Society's November First Friday talk brings Michael A. Boden of Dutchess Community College to the same building. His subject, "The Brave Montgomery," is Major General Richard Montgomery and the colonial army he led into Canada in the fall and early winter of 1775 to bring in a "14th Colony." The Society's listing describes the campaign as a failure that still shows the personal motives of the war's first months. The talk runs Friday, November 6, from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m.

The timing is a fit for the season. Montgomery's campaign began 251 years ago this fall, and the Society is ending its anniversary year with it, in a meeting house that has hosted a tour every month since July.

After the fifth, the season belongs to the houses and the market

Once December 5 passes, the season settles into a run of long engagements. Wilderstein begins its holiday tours on November 27, with the mansion dressed in yuletide decor. Tours run Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays at noon, 1, 2 and 3 p.m. through December 27. Tickets are $20, bought on arrival, and the site suggests coming about 15 minutes early because space on each tour is limited. Wilderstein is closed Christmas Day. Its regular mansion tours run Thursdays through Sundays until October 31, so the house closes for a stretch of about four weeks between seasons.

At Starr Cinema, All of a Sudden is listed to open Friday, December 4, and Ink on December 11, following Elsinore on November 20. Frozen stays at the CENTER into mid-January. The farmers' market keeps its Sunday hours through December 27.

The Chamber also lists the village's holiday lights and decorated Christmas tree, which it calls "our most beloved wonder," as a standing feature of the heart of Rhinebeck each winter. Last year, Saturday, December 20 was the Polar Bear gathering in the Foster's lot, from 2 to 4 p.m.

Paula's work in Rhinebeck and Clinton has always started with the calendar as well as the house: which Saturdays fill the village, which Sunday a historic building opens its doors, and how a property sits within that rhythm. If you own here and want a confidential read on what your home is worth this season, Paula Redmond would be glad to start that conversation. Request a Confidential Home Valuation.