Staines Christmas Parade is Sunday 22 November, 10.30am, after a Santa Fun Run at 10am. Ashford's Christmas market is confirmed for Wednesday 2 December.

Staines-upon-Thames opens its Christmas season with the Christmas Parade on Sunday 22 November 2026. It starts at 10.30am at the corner of Tilly’s Lane and runs down the High Street, and this year’s theme is Movies. The event runs until 4pm, and it is free.

That is confirmed on Visit Staines’ own event listing, which gives a start time of 10.30am and an end time of 4pm.

Updated 3 October: Staines Rotary’s Santa Fun Run now sets off at 10am, just before the parade, and the Ashford Wide Christmas Market is confirmed for Wednesday 2 December.

Run it first: the Santa Fun Run

Staines Rotary’s Santa Fun Run is on the same morning. The warm-up is at 9.30am and the 3.5km run, or walk, sets off from the High Street at 10am, timed to finish in time for runners to join the parade. Every entrant gets a Santa suit, hat, beard and race number, and a medal at the finish. The route is flat and the organisers say it suits pushchairs, wheelchairs and dogs on leads.

Entry is £13 for adults (16 and over), £10 for ages 9 to 15, £5 for ages 5 to 8, and free for children aged 4 and under, who do not get a suit. Family tickets run from £30 for two adults and two children. Registration is through Eventbrite, linked from Visit Staines’ fun run listing.

Visit Staines also says a Christmas trail around the town will run, with details still to come.

What actually happens on the day

The parade is put on by Visit Staines, the town centre Business Improvement District, together with the Elmsleigh Centre and Two Rivers. Father Christmas and local community groups walk the route.

The route, in the organisers’ own words: it starts at the corner of Tilly’s Lane, travels down the High Street, turns into Two Rivers, goes around the Costa Ring and comes back.

After the parade, free street performers and face painters work across the town centre, and Santa moves inside the Elmsleigh Centre. Community groups that want to join the parade apply through a form on the Visit Staines listing.

There is no separate lights switch-on ceremony in Staines

If you are searching for a Staines Christmas lights switch-on, the parade is what you want. Visit Staines describes it as the event that kick-starts the Christmas season in the town, and neither the BID nor Spelthorne Borough Council has announced a separate evening switch-on for the town centre.

The lights themselves are a BID spend rather than a council one. Visit Staines says on its own homepage that it funds 90 Christmas decoration motifs in the town centre and two Christmas selfie points, alongside its 170 flower displays.

Every other festive switch-on in Spelthorne

Three dates in the borough are confirmed for 2026 so far. The rest are last year’s, listed here so you know what to expect and when to look again.

Confirmed for 2026:

  • Staines Christmas Parade, Sunday 22 November 2026, 10.30am to 4pm, High Street
  • Ashford Wide Christmas Market, Wednesday 2 December 2026, 5pm to 8pm, Church Road, Ashford. Ashford Wide’s own listing promises more than 50 stalls, live music, mulled wine and a free Santa’s grotto, and warns that some roads and parking spaces will be closed to traffic on the day
  • Shepperton Big Tree Night, Wednesday 9 December 2026, 5pm to 8.30pm, Shepperton High Street. Full running order, road closures and bus diversions on our Big Tree Night page

Ran in 2025, 2026 dates not yet published. These come from Spelthorne Borough Council’s Christmas events page, which was last modified on 3 December 2025 and still shows the 2025 season:

  • Sunbury Christmas street party, The Avenue Parade, Sunbury-on-Thames. Ran Thursday 4 December 2025, 5pm to 8pm, with the road closed to traffic, a Santa’s grotto and a kids’ zone.
  • Christmas in Stanwell, Friday 5 December 2025. The lantern parade left Stanwell Family Centre on Hadrian Way at 5.30pm, followed by carols round the tree outside the Sir John Gibson from 6pm.
  • Stanwell Christmas grotto and snow globe, Sunday 7 December 2025, 11am to 4pm, at the Community Building on Long Recreation Ground.

Two things follow from those dates. The Ashford, Sunbury and Stanwell events all landed on weekday evenings in the first week of December last year, and Ashford has kept that slot for 2026, so they are easy to miss if you only check weekends. And the council page is a year out of date right now, which is worth knowing before you plan around it.

Getting into town for the parade

The parade is on a Sunday morning, which is the easiest time of the week to park in Staines. Tariffs across the borough’s car parks changed on 8 September 2026, so check parking in Staines for what the Elmsleigh, Riverside, Bridge Street and Kingston Road car parks now cost. For anything happening on the roads that week, see Staines roadworks and travel.

No road closure has been published for the parade. The stretch of High Street it uses is pedestrianised, and Visit Staines has not announced any traffic management. We will add it here if that changes.

Still to come

The 2025 season also had a Staines Market Christmas event with a free Santa’s grotto on Saturday 20 December, and a first Staines New Year Street Fair over 28 to 30 December, three days of small rides and street entertainment at the top of the High Street run by Billy Traylen with Visit Staines backing. Neither has a 2026 date yet. Both were announced in November last year, so expect the same again.

Sources