What's on around the Metro East in November 2026

Artists from the Muscogee, Santo Domingo, Diné, Hopi, Zuni and Ho-Chunk nations bring jewelry, ceramics, flutes and woodcarvings to the Interpretive Center at Cahokia Mounds over Thanksgiving weekend, a short walk from the largest earthen mound north of Mexico. The Cahokia Mounds Museum Society's own listing has the market open Friday, Saturday and Sunday, with free admission and free parking. Most of this month's confirmed dates on the Illinois side of St. Louis fall in the last ten days of November. Two of the biggest open on the same Friday evening, the 20th: the Alton community tree lighting downtown and the first night of the Way of Lights in Belleville.

I'm Jeff Moran, NMLS #483943, a mortgage broker licensed in Illinois and in Missouri through C2 Financial Corporation, and I have been in the mortgage business since 1996. I work out of Bluffton, South Carolina, and I wrote this for anyone looking at homes between Alton and Waterloo this month. Every date below comes from the organizer, the venue, the city that runs it or the visitor bureau that lists it, as each one has published it for this season. Anything I could only find on a previous year's listing is named near the bottom rather than in the dated list. I checked all of it on October 27, 2026. The Metro East buyer's guide covers the eight Illinois counties these towns are in.

Free country music along Grafton's main street, the first weekend

Bands play the bars, taprooms and riverfront restaurants along Grafton's main street for three days, and every set is free. River County News published the lineup in October with a Friday evening start on November 6, a full day on Saturday the 7th, and sets again on Sunday the 8th. A main stage goes up between the Grafton Pub, 3rd Chute and the Boarding House Bistro. The rest of the music is spread across the Loading Dock, Aerie's Resort, Drifter's, Abigail's Tap Room, the Waterfront Grill and the Bloody Bucket. Enjoy Grafton's event listing describes the weekend the same way but names only the 6th and the 7th in its text, so the Sunday sets are the one detail I would confirm before driving up the Great River Road.

The same Friday, Collinsville holds Bonfire and Brews at Willoughby Heritage Farm, with bonfires, local beer and live music on the farm grounds. Great Rivers and Routes lists it on November 6 among the city's fall events.

Five SIUE home games at First Community Arena

SIUE's own 2026-27 schedule opens the regular season at home on Monday, November 2 against Eureka College, then Concordia Chicago on Wednesday the 4th. The team is away at Lipscomb, Missouri, Duke and North Dakota through the middle of the month, and back in Edwardsville for North Park on Thursday the 19th, Northern Illinois on Wednesday the 25th and UTSA on Sunday the 29th. Tip-off times for the November games are not posted on the schedule page yet, so the athletics calendar is the place to settle those.

Veterans Day on Belleville's Public Square

Belleville holds its 28th annual Veterans Day ceremony at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, November 11, at Honorary Veterans Memorial Square on the Public Square downtown. The city's own events page carries the time and the place.

Scott Air Force Base is the largest employer in southwestern Illinois, and that shows up in the lending numbers. The 2024 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data counts 1,268 VA loans among the 8,272 home purchase loans made on the Illinois side of St. Louis. That is more VA loans than any Illinois metro except Chicago, which has ten times the purchase volume. If you are moving here on orders this winter, how VA loans work in Illinois covers entitlement, the funding fee and the attorney rule that applies here.

Belleville's Art and Wine Walk and the Edwardsville band craft fair, the same weekend

Belleville Main Street's events page puts the Art and Wine Walk on Saturday, November 14 from 3 to 7 p.m. along Main Street, with wine samples, artists' work in the shops and musicians playing between them. Day-of check-in is at the Belleville Main Street Welcome Center at 227 East Main Street, and the tickets are sold in advance, so the ticket page is the one to read first.

Up in Edwardsville, the band boosters run their craft fair at the high school on Center Grove Road that Saturday and Sunday. The Edwardsville band program's own craft fair page says the proceeds go to the high school band, and every item has to be made by the exhibitor. The band's own page counts more than 350 booths; other listings put it nearer 250 to 320.

The holiday season opens Friday the 20th in Alton, Belleville and Lebanon

Alton goes first, on the Friday before Thanksgiving. Alton Main Street's event page has Santa arriving at Lincoln-Douglas Square at 6 p.m. on November 20, with free caroling, cookies and hot cocoa until 6:45, when Mayor David Goins turns on the tree. The Alton-Godfrey Rotary Club donates the tree. This is the 33rd year.

The same evening in Belleville, the 57th Way of Lights opens at the National Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows and runs nightly into the new year. The shrine's own events page gives the run as November 20 through December 31, from 5 p.m. The display is more than a million bulbs along a drive through the shrine grounds, and some listings show it closed on Thanksgiving itself, so the shrine's calendar settles which nights are dark.

Out in St. Clair County, Lebanon turns its downtown into an outdoor Victorian market for two days. The event's own site lists the 33rd annual Victorian Holiday on Friday, November 20 and Saturday, November 21, and Downstate Illinois carries the same window for downtown Lebanon.

Thanksgiving week in Belleville, from a 5K to a parade at 10 in the morning

Gingerbread creations go into the downtown shop windows first. Explore Belleville's holiday page dates the 36th annual Gingerbread Walk from November 24 into the first days of January, and it costs nothing to walk the windows.

Thanksgiving morning brings the Thanksgiving 5K and Turkey Chase through downtown on November 26. The race's own registration page has it starting at 8 a.m. on the Public Square and calls it the 16th running, and Belleville Main Street's listing shows a 7 a.m. start and the 15th, so the two disagree on both.

The parade is the next morning, Friday the 27th, at 10 a.m. The city's holiday page carries the date and the time, and the Optimist Club of Belleville hosts it. Belleville Main Street calls it the largest parade in Southern Illinois and dates it to 1952. That evening the city lights the fountain at Honorary Veterans Memorial Square at 6 p.m., and Santa's house on the Public Square opens the same day and stays open to Christmas Eve. The 2026 hours for the Santa house were not posted when I checked.

Thanksgiving weekend in Collinsville, Waterloo and Jerseyville

Cahokia Mounds holds the Holiday Native American Market on the 27th, 28th and 29th, with more than two dozen vendors selling in the Interpretive Center. Southern Illinois Now reported the hours in October as noon to 5 p.m. Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday. The site's own calendar shows noon to 5 p.m. on all three days, so the two disagree on the weekend hours. A spring notice said the Interpretive Center museum was closed for renovation with only the gallery open, which is worth a call to the site before you go.

Alton's drive-through light display starts the same Friday. The Illinois Office of Tourism's listing has Christmas Wonderland at Rock Spring Park opening Friday, November 27 and running through December 27, and Riverbender reported the same dates in August, with hours of 6 to 9 p.m. Monday through Friday and 5 to 9 p.m. on weekends. Great Rivers and Routes' own listing gives November 28 as the opening instead, so that is the date to confirm. One night in the run is a walk-on night rather than a drive-through, and the bureau puts it on the first Monday after Thanksgiving, which this year is November 30.

Collinsville fills the Gateway Center with model trains that Saturday and Sunday. Great Rivers and Routes' listing describes more than 200 tables of dealers, free workshops and demonstrations and a large operating model train display, with admission at $12 and children 11 and under free.

Waterloo holds its lighted parade on the historic downtown square at 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, November 28. Downstate Illinois lists the parade at that date and time, and the city council's own special-event permit covers the street closures for it. Downstate Illinois lists the Christmas Walk across that Saturday and Sunday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., with free carriage rides and visits with Santa.

The city's own Christmas Walk page still shows a prior year's dates, and other listings give a different weekend, so the parade date is the firm one here and the walk is the part to confirm.

Jerseyville lights its tree the same day. River County News reported in September that the Downtown Country Christmas Festival returns to City Center Park on Saturday, November 28. The day brings a 35-foot tree and a visit from Santa, and the Bright Nights displays run from that evening through December 31. Jerseyville has called the festival off for weather before, so the organizers' page is the one to read that morning.

The farmers markets closed their outdoor season in October

The outdoor markets are done for the year around here. Riverbender reported that the Land of Goshen Community Market in Edwardsville ended its season with Harvest Day on Saturday, October 17, in City Park. O'Fallon's Vine Street Market at O'Fallon Station runs May through October and opens again next May, according to O'Fallon Parks and Recreation.

Goshen's indoor winter market has run on the third Saturday of the month from November through April in past years, in the basement of Newsong Fellowship Church on St. Louis Street. The market's own site had nothing posted for this winter when I checked, and two listings disagree about whether the indoor season starts in November or in December, so this one is in the unconfirmed list below. Market organizers plan to move back to the renovated Goshen Commons for the 2027 season, which will be the market's 30th.

Events I could not confirm for this year

Nine things that turn up on November lists around the Metro East are not in the dated list above. Either the organizer had not published this year's date, the only listing I could find was a third-party calendar, or the listings that do carry a date disagree with the city's own.

The O'Fallon Illuminated Holiday Parade and the tree lighting that follows it at Community Park are the biggest of them. The parade's own site shows Saturday, November 28, and the city's own calendar still carries last year's Friday date, which was itself a weather change. The Land of Goshen winter market has no date posted for this winter either.

Seven smaller ones round out the list. A Festival of Christmas at Columbia Turner Hall on the 13th appears on one calendar only, and so does a Christmas bazaar at Saints Peter and Paul Parish in Alton on the 21st. The same goes for the City of the Sun 5K trail run at Cahokia Mounds on the 8th and a veterans appreciation breakfast in East Alton on the 11th. Jerseyville has a craft bazaar listed on the 28th, and Machinists Hall in Granite City has a fair listed on the 20th. The Bethalto Farmers and Artisans Market is listed as still running on Saturday mornings in Bethalto Park, and no end date for its season is posted.

Highland and Granite City had no November dates published anywhere I could read, and neither did Bond, Calhoun, Clinton or Macoupin county tourism. Alton Parks and Recreation does have a gingerbread contest with entries due by the 30th, which is a deadline rather than an event.

New around the area this year

The MetroLink extension to MidAmerica Airport is built and in testing. St. Louis Public Radio covered the completion in early October, and officials cut the ribbon at the new station with Governor JB Pritzker there. The line runs 5.2 miles east from the Shiloh-Scott Transit Center to a station across from the MidAmerica terminal. Riverbender put the cost at $154 million for the rail and $192 million for the whole project, including the roads and the trail. Trains are not carrying riders yet. MetroLink and St. Clair County Transit District officials are still testing the new track, and neither agency has announced an opening day. They expect the first trains within a few months. So if you buy near Shiloh or Mascoutah this winter, the train to St. Louis Lambert International Airport will open sometime after you move in. The companion MetroBikeLink trail, 4.5 miles of it, opened in June.

The Orchard Town Center in Glen Carbon keeps filling in. First Alert 4 reported in July that the center will bring 21 businesses across roughly 250,000 square feet. Chick-fil-A and two others are already open, Shake Shack and LongHorn Steakhouse are coming, and the area's first Meijer supermarket opens in spring 2027. Tenants arrive through 2028. If you are choosing between two subdivisions nearby, I would put the center on a map and see how far each one is from it, because that is a drive you would make every week.

Triad is building a new middle school in Troy. Construction started in October 2025 and the district has it opening in July 2027. The Troy Times Tribune reported in late July that steel for the elevated track and the main gym roof decking was going in. It is the only new school building I could find under construction on the Illinois side. Triad's own boundary map is what settles which school serves an address, and I would look that up before you get attached to a particular home.

A new job at Scott Air Force Base, at one of these new stores, or anywhere else around here changes which documents I will ask you for. On salary, that is usually your two most recent pay stubs and your W-2s for the past two years, plus a verification from your employer. If you work for yourself, I will need your complete income tax returns, all pages and schedules, please, for the past two years. That is your personal returns and the returns for any business you have an interest in, plus your year-to-date profit and loss statement. Getting pre-approved in Illinois covers what gets reviewed before anybody writes a letter, and self-employed mortgages in Illinois covers the tax return side.

Common questions

What is open around the Metro East on Thanksgiving weekend 2026?

Quite a lot. The Holiday Native American Market at Cahokia Mounds runs Friday through Sunday, and the Belleville Santa Parade is Friday morning at 10. The Great Train Show is at the Gateway Center in Collinsville on Saturday and Sunday, and Waterloo's lighted parade is Saturday evening at 5:30. Jerseyville lights its tree Saturday, and both Christmas Wonderland in Alton and the Way of Lights in Belleville are open nightly. The Way of Lights is listed as closed on Thanksgiving Day itself.

When does the Way of Lights open in 2026?

Friday, November 20, at 5 p.m., and it runs nightly through December 31 at the National Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows on South De Mazenod Drive in Belleville. This is the 57th year. The shrine's own calendar is where the closed nights are posted.

When is the Belleville Santa Parade in 2026?

Friday, November 27, at 10 in the morning, through downtown Belleville, hosted by the Optimist Club. The city lights the fountain at Honorary Veterans Memorial Square at 6 that evening, and Santa's house on the Public Square opens the same day and stays open to Christmas Eve.

Which Metro East holiday light displays are open in November?

Three of them open in November and all three run into December. The Way of Lights in Belleville opens the 20th and runs to December 31. Christmas Wonderland at Rock Spring Park in Alton opens the 27th and runs to December 27, with a walk-on night on the 30th. Bright Nights in Jerseyville starts the evening of the 28th and runs to December 31.

Are the farmers markets still open in November around Edwardsville and O'Fallon?

The outdoor ones are not. Edwardsville's Land of Goshen Community Market closed its season on October 17 and O'Fallon's Vine Street Market runs May through October. Goshen has held an indoor winter market on third Saturdays in past years, and this winter's dates were not posted when I checked on October 27.

I am buying on the Illinois side instead of the Missouri side. What is different?

This is one housing market with a state line through it, and I am licensed on both sides, so I can price either. Illinois adds an attorney review period after the contract, the seller normally provides a staked boundary survey, and the tax bill and the transfer stamps work differently. The St. Louis page covers the Missouri side and the Metro East buyer's guide covers these eight Illinois counties.

I am moving to the Metro East this winter. Where should I start?

I like to begin with the county and the municipality the address is in, because those two decide the tax bill and the school district. The county also decides how your homeowners policy handles mine subsidence, which is damage from the ground sinking over an abandoned coal mine. Illinois law puts that coverage in every residential policy in the counties where most of the underground mining happened, and Madison, St. Clair and Macoupin are three of them. You can reject it in writing, and it is in the policy unless you do. The Illinois page covers the statewide rules. Two more are useful once you are under contract: the Illinois homeowner exemption after you buy and the village transfer stamp some towns require before closing. 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.