What's on around Chicago in November 2026

Four of the area's holiday events open for the first time on the same Friday evening this month. The Millennium Park tree lighting, Christkindlmarket at Daley Plaza, ZooLights at Lincoln Park Zoo and Aurora's Winter Lights all start within a couple of hours of each other on November 20. Most of the holiday light displays around Chicago open in the same nine days, between Friday, November 13 and Saturday, November 21. Downtown Naperville goes earlier than any of them, on Monday, November 2.

I'm Jeff Moran, NMLS #483943, a mortgage broker licensed in Illinois through C2 Financial Corporation, and I have been in the mortgage business since 1996. Every date below comes from the organizer, the venue or the city that runs it, as each one has published it for 2026, and anything I could only find on a previous year's listing was left out of this post. I checked all of it on October 20, 2026. If you are looking at homes anywhere from the city out to Kendall County this fall, the Chicago area buyer's guide covers the nine counties here. It also covers the Cook County assessment cycle and the basement questions that come with an older home.

Tuesday the 3rd is election day

Election day is Tuesday, November 3. Early voting opened downtown on October 1 and expanded across all 50 wards and 56 suburban Cook County sites on October 19, which WTTW News reported on the day it happened. Same-day registration is available at early voting sites and on election day itself, according to WBEZ's guide to voting in this election.

Two sets of questions on that ballot could change what you pay every month. The Chicago Board of Education placed two non-binding questions before city voters, one on a millionaire's tax and one on penalties for undeveloped property, both of which Chalkbeat Chicago covered when the board approved them in August. Neither one compels anything, and I am not taking a position on either.

The suburban questions are binding, and there are a lot of them this year. The Daily Herald counted the wave in September. Community Unit School District 300, which reaches parts of Kane, McHenry, Cook and DeKalb counties, is asking for a $355.5 million bond. Northwest Suburban High School District 214 is asking for $295 million in new bonding authority, Yorkville Community Unit School District 115 for $275 million, and Deerfield School District 109 for $87.78 million. School levies are the largest single piece of most Illinois tax bills, so a bond question in the district you are shopping in is worth reading before you get to the polling place. Two pages on the site walk through how your tax bill changes after closing: what happens to property taxes after you buy and how escrow accounts work.

Comedy, film and a Sunday of talks in Hyde Park

The 312 Comedy Festival runs November 5 through 15 in its fourth year, across the Chicago Theatre, the Vic, Park West, the Riviera, Wintrust Arena and both Zanies rooms. CBS Chicago listed the venues and the headliners when the lineup went out, and the festival's own site is where the night-by-night schedule lives.

The Black Harvest Film Festival opens the next evening and runs November 6 through 15 at the Gene Siskel Film Center on North State Street. The Gene Siskel Film Center puts it in its 32nd year, and the Chicago Reader counted more than 75 films, 60 of them Chicago premieres, with more than 50 filmmakers expected to attend.

Saturday the 7th is the Hyde Park day of the Chicago Humanities Fall Festival, hosted at the University of Chicago, and the festival itself closes on November 14. WTTW News published the full schedule in August, with Ira Glass, Kyle MacLachlan, Naomi Klein and Marlon James among nearly 50 talks and performances.

In Pilsen, the National Museum of Mexican Art is showing its 40th annual Día de Muertos exhibition, called Where Memory Lives, through November 29. It draws on the museum's permanent collection to trace four decades of the holiday, and Block Club Chicago's roundup lists the hours as Tuesday through Sunday.

Two Bears Sundays at Soldier Field

The Bears are home twice this month. Tampa Bay comes in on Sunday, November 8 for a night game, and New Orleans on Sunday, November 22 at noon. The team's own ticket page carries both, and kickoff times move for the national broadcast, so that page is the one to check the week of the game. Lake Shore Drive and the Museum Campus lots fill early for both.

Veterans Day is on a Wednesday this year

Veterans Day falls on Wednesday, November 11. The City of Chicago has held its commemoration ceremony at Soldier Field in recent years, and the city's Veterans Day page had not posted the 2026 details when I checked on October 20. The dates circulating elsewhere belong to last year's ceremony, so I have left the city event out rather than print a time I could not confirm. Aurora and several other suburbs run their own 11 a.m. observances, and each village's own calendar is the place to find them.

If you are shopping for a home here with a VA loan, VA loans in Illinois covers how the program works across the state and around Naval Station Great Lakes.

The holiday lights, in the order they come on

Lightscape goes first. The Chicago Botanic Garden's own announcement puts the eighth year of the illuminated trail at Friday, November 13 through Sunday, January 3, on select dates inside that run, at the garden in Glencoe.

Illumination at The Morton Arboretum in Lisle opens the following night, Saturday, November 14, and runs to January 2. The Arboretum's exhibition page describes 50 acres and more than 1,000 lighted trees, with an aurora-style canopy new this year and a sensory night on November 17 that uses static lights and low-volume music.

Then comes Friday the 20th, which is the crowded one. The city's 113th annual Christmas tree lighting is in Millennium Park that evening. The Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events says the park opens up at 4 p.m., the ceremony starts at 6 p.m. and the tree goes on at about 6:30. Its Millennium Park holiday page also has the Holiday Market running that Friday through Sunday the 22nd, with more than 40 local makers and free admission. The McCormick Tribune Ice Rink opens the same day. The tree stays lit into January.

Christkindlmarket opens at Daley Plaza the same Friday, November 20, and runs daily to December 24 in its 30th season. NBC Chicago published the hours and the three locations in August: Sunday through Thursday 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., Friday and Saturday to 9 p.m., and a short day on Thanksgiving. The Wrigleyville market at Gallagher Way and the Aurora market at RiverEdge Park open that Friday too. Admission is free at all three.

ZooLights opens at Lincoln Park Zoo that Friday as well, and the zoo's own press page runs it to Sunday, January 3, nightly from 4:30 to 9 p.m. with last entry at 8. The zoo closes it on Thanksgiving and most Tuesdays, and it is offering free admission with registration on Mondays November 23 and November 30. Tickets for the other nights are dated, and the zoo's page is where to get them.

Out in Aurora, Winter Lights starts at 6 p.m. on Downer Place between Water and River streets, with the parade stepping off at 6:30 and a drone show over the Fox River after the tree lighting. The City of Aurora's own event page says streets begin closing at 6 p.m. and the public downtown lots are free. It also puts Santa at the Grand Army of the Republic Military Museum on Downer Place right after the drone show.

Saturday the 21st is the Magnificent Mile Lights Festival, in its 35th year. The Magnificent Mile's own guide has Lights Festival Lane open on Michigan Avenue from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., with free admission. The parade steps off at 5:30 p.m. from Oak Street, with Mickey and Minnie leading it and fireworks over the river at the end. The Magnificent Mile calls it the largest nighttime parade in the country, and ABC7 is airing it the following evening.

Two suburbs light up earlier in the month than any of that. The Downtown Naperville Alliance turns the downtown lights on at 5 p.m. on Monday, November 2, and the Naper Settlement tree lighting is Wednesday, November 18 from 5 to 7 p.m.

Farmers markets, and the Saturday each one closes

November is when the outdoor markets around here finish for the year, and they do not all finish on the same weekend.

Green City Market runs Saturdays in Lincoln Park and in the West Loop, and the City of Chicago's 2026 market schedule closes both on November 21. That gives you the 7th, the 14th and the 21st. Its Wednesday market finished in October, and the market says its indoor winter season opens in December without naming a day yet.

The suburban markets run on their own calendars, and the Sun-Times guide to suburban markets is the one place they are all written down. Oak Park's Saturday market on Lake Street closes November 14. Downtown Evanston closes November 21. Wheaton's French Market goes longest of the ones I could confirm, Saturdays to November 28, on later hours through November. Palatine keeps a true winter market on the first and third Saturday of each month.

Thanksgiving morning has a parade and two races

Thanksgiving is Thursday, November 26. The 92nd Chicago Thanksgiving Parade heads north on State Street from Ida B. Wells Drive to Randolph, and the City of Chicago's parade listing gives the start as 8 a.m. Other listings say 7:40 or 7:45, so the city page is the one I would trust the morning of. Watching from the street is free. ABC7 reported that Charles "Peanut" Tillman is this year's grand marshal, with a Cookie Monster balloon new to the lineup.

The Life Time Turkey Trot Chicago goes off at 9 a.m. the same morning in Lincoln Park, a 5K and an 8K with the start and finish just south of Diversey near Cannon Drive. The race's own site puts it in its 48th year and opens race-day packet pickup at 6 a.m. If you would rather run earlier in the month, the Chicago Area Runners Association holds a free timed Turkey Trot in Washington Park on Saturday, November 21, which CARA posts on its own page.

Events I could not confirm for this year

Nine things that still show up on November lists around here are not in the dated list above, because I could not find this year's date from the people who run them. The City of Chicago's Veterans Day ceremony and the Schaumburg and Joliet tree lightings have only last year's details posted. Green City Market's indoor winter season and the 61st Street market's winter Saturdays are both described without dates. The Ravenswood ArtWalk ran in September this year, not November, and the Bridgeport Art Center gallery show I found carried no confirmed date. The Metra station at Auburn Park is targeted for the end of the year without a day named.

Naperville's Parade of Lights is canceled for 2026, and the NaperLights display is listed for the end of the month with its dates still to be announced, so please check the city's calendar before you plan around either.

New around the area this year

The Obama Presidential Center opened in Jackson Park, and it brought a library branch with it. The campus opened to the public on June 19, 2026. The Chicago Public Library branch inside it on Stony Island Avenue is the first public library branch in a presidential center anywhere in the country, which Block Club Chicago covered on opening week. Its Presidential Reading Room holds 3,000 books the Obamas chose, and Chicago residents can get a card there.

Mars Snacking is adding 600 jobs downtown. The governor's office announced a $100 million expansion of the company's global headquarters in March 2026, with a regional hub in Fulton Market and a global office downtown in the former Kellanova space. A job that starts here changes which documents a lender reads on your file, and it matters early whether you are taking a salaried position or working for yourself once you arrive. Getting pre-approved in Illinois covers what gets reviewed before anybody writes a letter, and self-employed mortgages in Illinois covers the returns side of it.

Three road and rail projects will outlast this month by years. The CTA broke ground on the Red Line Extension on April 24, 2026, five and a half miles from 95th Street to 130th with four new stations, and WTTW News reported service is expected in 2030. On I-80 in Joliet, traffic is down to two lanes each way between Richards and Center streets while the Des Plaines River bridges are replaced, and that work runs to 2028. Out by O'Hare, the Daily Herald reported in October that I-490 is over budget at $4.3 billion, with the Illinois Route 390 interchange now scheduled for the end of 2027 rather than this year.

Hyde Park got more Metra trains, and the West Side got more stormwater storage. Since June 15, 2026, every weekday inbound Metra Electric train stops at the three Hyde Park stations, about every 20 minutes each way, which Block Club Chicago laid out when the schedule changed. In July the city opened two underground stormwater storage units in Austin, adding about 1.7 million gallons of temporary capacity in parts of the 28th, 29th and 37th wards, which WTTW News covered at the time. Basement water is a real question on an older Chicago home, and buying a home in a flood zone walks through the insurance side of it.

Common questions

What is happening around Chicago at Thanksgiving 2026?

Thanksgiving is Thursday, November 26. The 92nd Chicago Thanksgiving Parade heads north on State Street that morning, and the Life Time Turkey Trot Chicago runs a 5K and an 8K in Lincoln Park at 9 a.m. Christkindlmarket at Daley Plaza is open on a short day, and ZooLights at Lincoln Park Zoo is closed for the holiday. The city's parade page has the route and the start time.

When is the Chicago Christmas tree lighting in 2026?

Friday, November 20, in Millennium Park, for the 113th year. The park opens up at 4 p.m., the ceremony starts at 6 p.m. and the tree goes on at about 6:30, according to the city's Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events. The Holiday Market runs that Friday through Sunday the 22nd and the ice rink opens the same day, both on the city's Millennium Park holiday page.

When does ZooLights open at Lincoln Park Zoo in 2026?

Friday, November 20, nightly from 4:30 to 9 p.m. through January 3, with last entry at 8. Free admission nights with registration fall on Mondays November 23 and 30, and the zoo is closed on Thanksgiving and most Tuesdays. The zoo's press page carries the full calendar.

When is the last farmers market of the season around Chicago?

Green City Market closes both its Lincoln Park and West Loop Saturdays on November 21. Oak Park closes November 14, Downtown Evanston November 21, and Wheaton's French Market goes to November 28. Palatine runs a winter market on the first and third Saturday of each month.

Are these events all inside the City of Chicago?

Several are not. Lightscape is in Glencoe, Illumination is in Lisle, Winter Lights is in downtown Aurora, and the markets above are in Oak Park, Evanston, Wheaton and Palatine. The county a home is in changes its tax bill and its school district here, and a few towns cross county lines, so a mailing address will not settle it. The Chicago area buyer's guide walks through that county by county.

I am moving to the Chicago area this winter. Where should I start?

You'll want to start with which county the home is in, because Cook County is assessed on a different cycle from the eight other counties on the Illinois side. The school district changes the tax bill as much as the county does. After that, the Illinois page covers the statewide rules, including the attorney review period that comes after a contract here. Then please give me a call and tell me which towns you are looking in, and I can tell you what your numbers look like in each of them.