Peterborough's Lantern Parade Starts at the Library: How to Get a Lantern Into This Year's "Let It Snow" Walk

"Help Children and the Arts give the gift of light to our community as we light up Our Town with a Lantern Parade." That line sits at the bottom of a Peterborough Town Library event page for a Monday-night workshop. It explains how the parade works better than the parade night details do.

The parade is on Saturday, December 5, at 6 p.m. The rain or snow date is Sunday, December 6. This year's theme is "Let it Snow!" On parade night, Children and the Arts hands out the poles and the lights. You have to bring the lantern yourself. Most of those lanterns get built in November, at the library at 2 Concord Street. As this post goes up on Thursday, November 19, two of the eight November workshops are left.

November is when you sign up for the parade

Children and the Arts is a volunteer nonprofit that runs a free arts festival "for, by, and with the children of our community." The Lantern Parade is its winter event. The group scheduled eight lantern-making sessions in the library's Eben Jones Classroom this month. Each one runs 6 to 8 p.m. and makes one shape: houses, snowmen, stars, spheres or pyramids.

Six are already done. The two still ahead:

Both had only a handful of seats open the last time the library's registration pages were checked, and the Stars session was close to full. You have to register for these. The library asks people to pick the one workshop that interests them most and to cancel if they can't come, because those seats go to the waitlist. The library's holiday events calendar shows what's still open.

The fine print matters for families:

• Workshops are for ages 9 to 99.
• Kids under 13 need a caregiver registered too, not just in the room.
• Everyone making a lantern registers separately.
• Bring your own scissors, and wear clothes that can get gluey.

The library page says more parade details are handed out at the workshops. Going in November gets you the instructions along with the lantern.

What the lantern gets you on December 5

On parade night, the lantern you made becomes something you carry. Here's the evening as Children and the Arts lays it out on its Lantern Festival page:

1. 5:15 p.m. Poles and lights are handed out from stations in front of M&T Bank, 35 Main Street.
2. Before 6 p.m. Walkers line up behind the bank. Parade monitors run the line.
3. 6 p.m. sharp. The parade leaves on time, and not before.
4. The route. It goes down Grove Street to Putnam Park. Walkers follow the leaders all the way around the park before anyone stops to look.
5. The finish. Poles go back in the bins at each park exit so the group can use them again.

The group has about 1,000 pole-and-light sets, and they go out first come, first served. That's why 5:15 is the time to plan around.

Students have to walk with a responsible adult the whole way. Kids can't be dropped off at the start and picked up at the end, because the organizers call the finish "chaotic." This is a Children and the Arts event, not a ConVal School District event, and teachers won't be walking with their classes. The parade guidelines also ask walkers not to run or swing their lanterns. Hold the bamboo pole with both hands, with the lantern up and out in front. Gloves or mittens make the pole much easier to carry.

Last year's parade followed the same basic plan. The Monadnock Ledger-Transcript reported that the 2025 "Garden of Light" parade went down Main and Grove streets on Saturday, December 6. Students in the ConVal School District and others had spent weeks making lanterns for it.

Grove Street, and a Putnam Park that sat out the fall

The parade ends at Putnam Park, which had a quieter fall than usual. The Grove Street Bridge closed to cars and pedestrians in June for repairs. Crews found more deck damage than expected, and the Ledger-Transcript reported a possible total project ceiling of $750,000. The bridge work also pushed Peak Into Peterborough's Vendor Village out of Putnam Park this October. It moved to Depot Square Park, and the festival moved up a week.

The Ledger-Transcript's October 5 report said the bridge was finished on schedule and open by that Saturday, October 3. Julie Schoelzel, president of the Greater Monadnock Collaborative, told the paper the organizers "had made changes to the layout because of the unknowns with the (Grove Street) bridge, and that all worked out great." With the work done, the December lantern weekend is the first big downtown event since then set in Putnam Park itself.

Parking follows the route. There's no parking behind the bank, and the organizers ask people not to park on Grove Street, since the parade uses it. Children and the Arts posts a parking map for the evening. The town's downtown parking page says spaces on Grove and Main are two-hour parking. The Riverwalk lot and the Fire Station lot allow 24-hour parking. The Riverwalk lot connects to Depot Square by a pedestrian bridge.

If you missed the workshops

You don't need a lantern to see them. Volunteers set up the lantern installation in Putnam Park, and it's open Friday, December 4, through Sunday, December 6, from 6 to 8 p.m. each night, weather permitting. In 2025, the Ledger-Transcript described volunteers setting it up on a "frigid" Friday. The lanterns were spread through the park toward the Nubanusit River and stayed up through Sunday night. Friday and Sunday are the calmer nights to walk through.

The other way in is to help build it. Children and the Arts is signing up volunteers for the December 4 to 6 setup and parade through its 2026 volunteer sign-up. The 2026 event is sponsored in memory of Janet DiBlasi.

The Saturday before has its own evening downtown. The Holiday Night Market is set for Saturday, November 28, from 2 to 7 p.m., with MAXT's Holiday Night Market '26 listed at Peterborough Town Hall. The last workshop follows two days later, on Monday, November 30. A family that goes to both spends two evenings downtown in three days.

Dinner after the walk

The parade leaves at 6, and the installation is lit until 8. Most dinners will start somewhere between those two times. These are the Saturday evening hours each place lists:

Post & Beam is on Grove Street, the same street the parade uses, so it's an easy stop on the walk back from Putnam Park. Its Saturday pizza stops at 7, so plan an earlier pizza night around that. If weather moves the parade to Sunday, December 6, check hours again. The Waterhouse lists Tuesday through Saturday, and Thai Cafe lists Monday through Saturday.

The lanterns in Putnam Park on December 5 will mostly have been made at library tables this month. At North New England Real Estate Group, we'll be downtown that weekend like everyone else. If you'd like to talk over what's changing in Peterborough this winter, or what your home might be worth, contact us for a free local market consultation and home valuation.