Christmas Events for Kids in Asheboro (2026)

Christmas Events for Kids
Written by Kelsey Cecil

Updated 3 min read

Rally the corgi has sniffed out the Christmas events for kids in Asheboro for 2026. The Mayor’s Tree Lighting happens beside the train tracks on Sunset Avenue on Saturday, November 28, and the Christmas Parade rolls on Friday evening, December 4. We check every date on the City of Asheboro’s own calendar and link straight there. For the rest of the state, see our North Carolina Christmas events for kids guide.

What Rally found in Asheboro

  • 2 Christmas events for kids in Asheboro
  • Mayor’s Tree Lighting: Saturday, November 28, 6 pm
  • Tree sits beside the train tracks at 200 Sunset Avenue
  • Christmas Parade: Friday, December 4, 7 to 8:30 pm
  • Every date checked on the City of Asheboro calendar on Nov 11

Free Christmas events for kids in Asheboro

Tree lighting by the train tracksFree

Asheboro Mayor’s Tree Lighting

Expand to see the parent tip

Mayor Joey Trogdon and the City of Asheboro count down the lighting of the city’s Christmas tree at its traditional spot on Sunset Avenue, right next to the railroad tracks.

A local school music group performs, and the lighting officially opens the holiday season downtown, so families can stay for shopping and dinner on Small Business Saturday.

Parent tip: The tree sits beside the train tracks, so little train fans should keep an eye out for a passing freight while you wait for the countdown.

Host
City of Asheboro (opens in a new tab)
Address
City Christmas tree on Sunset Avenue, beside the train tracks, 200 Sunset Avenue, Asheboro, NC 27203 (opens in maps)
Confirmed
On the host’s page, checked
See dates and detailsfrom City of Asheboro (opens in a new tab)

New Asheboro events every week

Rally researches Christmas events in Asheboro daily and updates this page with new events. Enter your email to get a weekly update with new events in Asheboro.

Free. Unsubscribe anytime. Privacy policy (opens in a new tab)

Rally’s Christmas research

Rally the corgi has 1 more Asheboro event researched for you.

  • New events every week We research new events daily and send you one email a week with the new ones we find in Asheboro.
  • Exclusive access to free events Find the free Christmas events in Asheboro before they fill up.
  • Unlock the filters Find Santa visits, free events and weekend plans in one tap.
  • Rally’s Christmas Eve Express and a free advent calendar Get early access to Rally the corgi’s Christmas Eve tracker, plus a free digital advent calendar to count down to Christmas.
  • One-tap add to calendar Save any event to your Google, Apple or Outlook calendar so you never miss it.

Coming up on this page

  • 1 Lights
  • 1 Parades
  • 1 Shows
  • 2 Free

Enter your email to get new Christmas events in Asheboro every week.

Free. One email a week with new events in Asheboro. Unsubscribe anytime. Privacy policy

Evening Christmas paradeFree

Asheboro Christmas Parade

Expand to see the parent tip

The City of Asheboro lists its Christmas Parade for Friday evening, December 4, starting at 7 pm and running about an hour and a half.

An after-dark parade one week after the tree lighting gives families a second reason to head out together and wave to the floats.

Parent tip: The city has not posted the 2026 route yet, so check the City of Asheboro calendar the week of the parade before picking a curbside spot, and bring warm layers for a December night.

Host
City of Asheboro (opens in a new tab)
Address
Asheboro (route posted by the City of Asheboro), Asheboro, NC 27203 (opens in maps)
Confirmed
On the host’s page, checked
See dates and detailsfrom City of Asheboro (opens in a new tab)

New Asheboro events every week

Rally researches Christmas events in Asheboro daily and updates this page with new events. Enter your email to get a weekly update with new events in Asheboro.

Free. Unsubscribe anytime. Privacy policy (opens in a new tab)

We check every event above on the host’s own page for the date, time and cost, plus the things parents ask about, like sign-ups and ages. Looking for a Santa train instead? Those are on our North Carolina Christmas train rides page.

See every event on a December calendar

Plan your December

When each Asheboro Christmas event for kids happens

Make a day of Small Business Saturday downtown and stay for the 6 pm tree lighting on November 28, then come back the next Friday night for the parade.

Looking further afield? Our North Carolina Christmas events for kids guide lists every confirmed event in the state, and we have city guides for Greensboro, Graham, Burlington and Winston-Salem. The national search sorts every event by distance from your town.

A story for the drive home

A morning with Santa or an evening of holiday stories tends to end the same way: tired kids, a long drive and one more book before bed. Our picture book follows Rally the corgi on his first train ride to see his grand-paw-rents, and every page is painted by hand. If your family is spending December missing someone, it was written for that too. For the car, print our free corgi and train coloring pages.

Rally Takes the Train book cover: a watercolor corgi peeking from a red train

A bedtime story after seeing SantaRally Takes the Train is a five-minute rhyming picture book about a corgi’s first ride on a California train, hand-painted in watercolor. $16.99 on Amazon, ages 0 to 8.

Buy on Amazon (opens in a new tab)

The story of Christmas in Asheboro

Asheboro's Christmas tree does not stand in a park or on a courthouse lawn. It stands right beside the railroad tracks at 200 Sunset Avenue, and in 2025 it was a 22-foot Norway spruce trucked down from the mountains at Laurel Springs.

A tree by the Sunset Avenue tracks and a 2024 move away from parade night

For years Asheboro lit its Christmas tree on the same night as its Christmas parade. In 2023, for example, the tree lighting on the railroad tracks on Sunset Avenue came at 6 p.m. on December 1, with the Asheboro High School Park Street Ensemble singing, and the parade followed at 7 p.m. with NASCAR's Kyle Petty as grand marshal. City staff noticed that many families missed the lighting because they were busy saving curb spots for the parade.

So in 2024 the city gave the tree its own night. Mayor David Smith lit it at 6 p.m. on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, which was also Small Business Saturday, so the tree was already glowing when shoppers came downtown. That year's tree came from Boyd Mountain Tree Farm in Waynesville, and the Asheboro High School choral ensemble sang. The 2026 Mayor's Tree Lighting keeps that timing, on Saturday, November 28.

94 parade entries by Halloween and a Laurel Springs spruce lit November 29, 2025

By the end of October 2025, the Asheboro Christmas Parade already had 94 applications, with entries capped at 100 and a waiting list for the rest. The parade has 300 spaces to fill, since some units take up more than one, and Downtown Asheboro Inc. says it is the downtown event that draws the biggest crowd of the year. Organizers at the Asheboro/Randolph Chamber said the 2024 parade was one of the biggest in a long, long time. The 2025 parade rolled at 7 p.m. on Friday, December 5.

A week earlier, on November 29, 2025, the city lit its official tree, a 22-foot Norway spruce from Mistletoe Meadows in Laurel Springs, set beside the tracks at 200 Sunset Avenue. The city's Sunset Theatre added holiday shows, including A Bluegrass Christmas on December 19, a holiday edition of its third-Friday bluegrass nights with several bands instead of one. In 2026 the Asheboro Christmas Parade is Friday, December 4.

Christmas on Sunset, a 2021 drive-by parade and Russian tea in Bicentennial Park

Christmas on Sunset was once a yearly staple of downtown Asheboro, until the pandemic and a run of bad weather wiped it out. In 2022 the Chamber brought it back under a new name, Christmas Downtown, as an old-fashioned evening with carolers, a live nativity, The Christmas Story and holiday movies in the Sunset Theatre, wagon and carriage rides through Bicentennial Park, Russian tea, hot chocolate and cookies, marshmallow roasting and free spruce saplings from Trees NC. Families dropped canned food for CUOC and the Salvation Army.

In 2021 the parade itself turned inside out. Instead of watching floats roll by, families drove cars or pushed strollers past stationary floats along West Academy Street, Church Street, Sunset Avenue and Bicentennial Park. The parade returned to its usual route the next year, starting at Church Street and Sunset Avenue, heading east on Sunset and south on Fayetteville Street to Kivett Street, with judges on a review stand on Sunset awarding cash prizes for best float and best band. At the 2018 parade, Miss North Carolina Laura Matrazzo rode in a vintage Corvette.

The Polar Express at Spencer and a Santa Express in the Triangle pines

Asheboro's tree stands next to the tracks, but for a Christmas train ride families head west or east. About an hour away in Spencer, the N.C. Transportation Museum fills the old Southern Railway Spencer Shops, and its biggest season of the year is THE POLAR EXPRESS Train Ride. On Polar Express days the museum closes at 2 p.m. and the buildings stay shut for the evening trains, and only the car named Noel has wheelchair spaces.

To the east near New Hill, volunteers of the North Carolina Railway Museum run the New Hope Valley Railway, where the Santa Express in December brings Santa aboard and kids play an I Spy game with the decorations. A sensory-friendly winter ride keeps the music off and has Santa wait in the railyard instead of on the train.

  • N.C. Transportation Museum: The old Spencer Shops roundhouse with turntable rides, a 25-minute train ride and THE POLAR EXPRESS Train Ride every holiday season.
  • New Hope Valley Railway: Hour-long diesel train rides through the pines near New Hill, with a Santa Express and a calmer sensory-friendly ride each December.

Traditions today

  • The tree by the tracks: The city's official Christmas tree goes up beside the railroad tracks at 200 Sunset Avenue and is lit by the mayor on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.
  • The Friday night parade: Bands, floats and Santa roll down Sunset Avenue and Fayetteville Street after dark on the first Friday of December, with prizes for the best float and band.
  • Christmas Downtown: The Chamber's old-fashioned downtown evening with Santa in the recreation center, carriage rides in Bicentennial Park and marshmallows toasted by firefighters.
  • A Bluegrass Christmas: A holiday edition of the Sunset Theatre's third-Friday bluegrass nights, with several local bands sharing the stage.
  • Seagrove pottery open houses: Just south of Asheboro, Seagrove potters open their studios for self-guided holiday tours on Saturdays and some Sundays in December.

A fact for kids

Asheboro's Christmas tree lives right next to the railroad tracks, so if you are lucky, a real train might rumble past while you wait for the lights to come on.

Questions about Christmas in Asheboro

Where is the Asheboro Christmas tree?

Asheboro's official Christmas tree stands beside the railroad tracks at 200 Sunset Avenue in downtown Asheboro. Earlier tree lightings were billed as being held on the railroad tracks on Sunset Avenue. The spot puts the tree in the middle of the downtown shops and right on the parade route, so families pass it on parade night too.

Where did the 2025 Asheboro Christmas tree come from?

The 2025 tree was a 22-foot Norway spruce from Mistletoe Meadows in Laurel Springs, in the North Carolina mountains. It was lit at the annual ceremony on November 29, 2025, and city crews put up the downtown holiday decorations around it. The year before, the city's tree came from Boyd Mountain Tree Farm in Waynesville.

When is the Asheboro tree lighting in 2026 and who lights it?

The 2026 Mayor's Tree Lighting is Saturday, November 28, at 6 p.m. beside the tracks on Sunset Avenue. Mayor Joey Trogdon leads the countdown and a local school music group performs. It falls on Small Business Saturday, so downtown shops are open before and after.

Why did Asheboro move its tree lighting away from parade night?

Until 2023, the tree was lit at 6 p.m. on parade night, just before the parade stepped off. City spokesperson Alyssa Chapuis said many visitors missed the lighting because they were staking out parade spots. In 2024 the city moved it to the Saturday after Thanksgiving so it could be a bigger event and the tree would already be lit for holiday shoppers.

Who lit the Asheboro Christmas tree in 2024?

Mayor David Smith lit the tree at 6 p.m. on Saturday, November 30, 2024, the first year the lighting had its own night after Thanksgiving. The tree came from Boyd Mountain Tree Farm in Waynesville and stood next to the tracks at 200 Sunset Avenue, and the Asheboro High School choral ensemble sang.

When is the Asheboro Christmas Parade in 2026?

The 2026 Asheboro Christmas Parade is Friday, December 4, from 7 to 8:30 p.m., according to the City of Asheboro calendar. It is a night parade with bands, decorated floats and Santa. The route was not yet posted when we checked, so look at the city calendar the week of the parade.

What is the Asheboro Christmas Parade route?

In recent years the parade has started at the corner of Church Street and Sunset Avenue, gone east on Sunset Avenue to Fayetteville Street, then south on Fayetteville Street to Kivett Street. It has been scheduled to last about two hours. Judges watch from a review stand on Sunset Avenue, so that block is a lively place to stand.

How big is the Asheboro Christmas Parade?

Very big for a city its size. Organizers cap entries at 100 and keep a waiting list, and there are 300 parade spaces because some units take more than one. By the end of October 2025 there were already 94 applications. Downtown Asheboro Inc. says it draws the largest attendance of any downtown event each year.

Are there prizes in the Asheboro Christmas Parade?

Yes. Judges review entries from a stand on Sunset Avenue and award cash prizes for first, second and third place in Best Float and Best Band, plus an award for Overall Best Entry. That is part of why so many bands, churches, businesses and groups compete for a spot each year.

Who was grand marshal of the Asheboro Christmas Parade in 2023?

NASCAR's Kyle Petty was grand marshal of the 2023 Asheboro Christmas Parade on Friday, December 1. Families could meet him at the Sunset Theatre from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Then the tree was lit on Sunset Avenue at 6 p.m. with the Asheboro High School Park Street Ensemble, and the parade ran from 7 to 9 p.m.

What was the 2021 reverse Christmas parade in Asheboro?

On December 3, 2021, the Asheboro Christmas Parade flipped around. The floats and parade units stayed still, and families drove cars or pushed strollers past them on a loop along West Academy Street, Church Street, Sunset Avenue and Bicentennial Park. The next year the parade went back to marching down Sunset and Fayetteville.

What happened to Christmas on Sunset in Asheboro?

Christmas on Sunset was once a yearly downtown staple, but the pandemic and bad weather wiped it out for several years. In 2022 the Asheboro/Randolph Chamber brought it back as Christmas Downtown, an old-fashioned evening with carolers, a live nativity, movies at the Sunset Theatre, carriage rides, Russian tea and cookies.

Where do kids meet Santa at Christmas Downtown in Asheboro?

At Christmas Downtown in 2023, Santa and Mrs. Claus greeted children in the lobby of the City of Asheboro recreation center, with the line winding through the gym to keep families out of the weather. Firefighters roasted marshmallows on North Street, and kids posed with Santa's sleigh and reindeer by City Hall and a gingerbread house on Sunset Avenue.

Is there a live nativity in downtown Asheboro at Christmas?

The 2022 Christmas Downtown evening included a live nativity scene among its old-fashioned activities, along with carolers, The Christmas Story at the Sunset Theatre, wagon and carriage rides through Bicentennial Park, and visits from the Grinch, Frosty, Rudolph, elves and Santa and Mrs. Claus. Check the Chamber's plans each year, since the lineup changes.

What holiday shows are at the Sunset Theatre in Asheboro?

The city-run Sunset Theatre hosts holiday programs each December. In 2025 they included A Rat Pack Christmas, a tribute to Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. with $25 tickets, and A Bluegrass Christmas on December 19 with $10 tickets and several bands. The theatre has also screened Christmas movies during downtown celebrations.

What Christmas food is a tradition in Asheboro?

At downtown Christmas celebrations, the Chamber has served Russian tea, hot chocolate and cookies from stations along the streets, and the Asheboro fire department has helped families roast marshmallows. The same evenings have featured carolers, carriage rides and a canned food drive for CUOC and the Salvation Army, so treats come with a chance to give.

Is there a Christmas train ride near Asheboro?

Yes, within about an hour. The N.C. Transportation Museum in Spencer runs THE POLAR EXPRESS Train Ride, its biggest season of the year. To the east near New Hill, the New Hope Valley Railway runs a Santa Express in December with Santa on board. Check each railroad's dates and tickets well before December.

Is there a sensory-friendly Santa train near Asheboro?

The New Hope Valley Railway, run by the North Carolina Railway Museum near New Hill, offers a sensory-friendly winter ride. In 2026 it is Wednesday, December 9, with departures at 10:30 a.m. and noon. There is no music on board, Santa waits in the railyard instead of on the train, and brakemen signal before the horn sounds.

What other Christmas parades are near Asheboro?

Randolph County holds a string of parades in early December. In 2025 Randleman went first on December 4, then Asheboro on December 5, Franklinville, Liberty and Seagrove on December 6, Archdale on December 7, and Staley and Ramseur on December 13. Families who love parades can see several in one week.

What is the CBA Toy Run in Randolph County?

It is a yearly motorcycle toy drive led by Santa Claus riding on the back of a motorcycle. The Randolph Record covered the 36th annual CBA Toy Run, with riders filling N.C. 64 on their way toward Lexington while families waved from the roadside. Riders collect toys for local children, and it has become a familiar sight on Randolph County roads each Christmas season.

What can families do in Asheboro at Christmas in 2026?

Start with the tree lighting by the tracks on November 28, then come back for the night parade on December 4. Add a holiday show at the Sunset Theatre, a drive south to the Seagrove pottery open houses, and a Christmas train in Spencer or near New Hill. See our North Carolina Christmas events guide for more.

Sources

  1. Organizers gear up for another large Christmas parade in Asheboro, Randolph Record
  2. Tree lighting comes early in Asheboro; Check on other holiday-related activities, Randolph Record
  3. Holiday concerts set for Asheboro; Other Christmas-related events in area, Randolph Record
  4. Five days of Christmas festivities, Randolph Record
  5. Santa for a cause: 36th annual CBA Toy Run, Randolph Record
  6. Christmas Downtown scheduled for Friday night in Asheboro, Randolph Hub
  7. A rundown of local Christmas parades, Randolph Hub
  8. Merry Christmas!, Randolph Hub
  9. 'Tis time for activities and fun, Randolph Hub
  10. Local Happenings: Christmas parades!, Randolph Hub

Keep the Christmas magic going: track Rally the corgi on Christmas Eve, print free Christmas coloring pages, learn how to say Merry Christmas in 100+ languages, find train museums to visit with kids, or browse Christmas events in every North Carolina city.

Asheboro Christmas events for kids: questions parents ask

What are the best Christmas events for kids in Asheboro this year?

Rally Takes the Train has confirmed 2 Christmas events for kids in Asheboro for 2026: the Mayor’s Tree Lighting on November 28 and the Christmas Parade on December 4.

When is the Asheboro tree lighting in 2026?

Saturday, November 28, 2026, at 6 pm at the city’s tree on Sunset Avenue (200 Sunset Avenue), next to the train tracks.

When is the Asheboro Christmas Parade in 2026?

Friday, December 4, 2026, from 7 to 8:30 pm, according to the City of Asheboro calendar.

Is the Asheboro tree lighting kid friendly?

Yes. It is a short outdoor countdown with a performance by a local school music group, and the train tracks right beside the tree are a bonus for young train fans.

Who do I contact about Asheboro holiday events?

The City of Asheboro Public Information Officer, who handles special events and parade permits, at achapuis@asheboronc.gov.

Are there Christmas train rides for kids in North Carolina?

Yes. Santa trains and holiday train rides have their own guide: Rally Takes the Train’s North Carolina Christmas train rides page.

How do you confirm these events?

We list an event only after we find this season’s date on the host’s own website or an official city or tourism calendar. We last checked Asheboro on November 11, 2026. Rally is also contacting each organizer to confirm details like parking, restrooms and bad-weather plans.

Event names belong to their hosts. Rally Takes the Train is a family picture book and is not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by any host listed here. Confirm dates, times and prices on each host’s own site before you go.

Kelsey Cecil
Previous

Christmas Events for Kids in Atascadero (2026)
Next

Christmas Events for Kids in Ardmore (2026)