On Saturday, Dec. 5, the last visitors of the day will leave the five stops on Tweeds Holiday Home Tour at 5 p.m. An hour later, the Lights Above the Clouds Parade starts on US 24. It runs about an hour, with more than 50 floats and "Warm Your Bum Fires" along the route.
Different volunteers run each event, and there's no joint ticket. On the calendar, though, they work as one day. The tour fills the daylight hours, the parade takes the evening, and the tour's ticket desks sit on Midland Avenue and US 24, a short walk from where the floats will pass. Plan them together and that Saturday is the busiest holiday day Woodland Park has all year.
Five stops, three places to start
The tour has two kinds of stops. Five are decorated venues: four homes in Woodland Park and a horse sanctuary in Green Mountain Falls. The other three are hospitality stops, and each one works a little differently. According to the tour's hospitality page, this is how they're set up:
- The Woodland Professional Building, 400 W Midland Ave. Most people start here. If you bought tickets online, this is where you pick them up, along with a Tour Guide and directions from a volunteer. The Tour Artisan Shoppe sells handmade Christmas pieces, silent auction items are set out in the ticket lobby, and the free coffee is the signature Tweeds Holiday Home Tour Blend. It's open 9:30 to 5 both days.
- Tweeds Fine Furnishings, 240 E Highway 24. Tweeds holds a holiday open house during the tour. Ambassadors there sell tickets, hand out online orders and answer questions about the tour stops, the artisan shop, Quilters Above the Clouds, the silent auction and the music lineup.
- The Woodland Park Senior Center, 321 N Pine St., behind City Hall. Music in the Mountains runs here all day, 10 to 5, in a room the Woodland Park Senior Organization decorated with candy canes. Santa and Mrs. Claus pose for family photos on Sunday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Tickets cost $20 for adults and $5 for K–12 students. Preschoolers and younger children get in free. You can buy them online or in person, and each ticket gets you into each venue once. The tour runs snow or shine. On the ticket page, Saturday runs 9:30 to 5 and Sunday 9:30 to 4. If you're planning a Sunday afternoon visit, check the times on wphht.org the week before.
Two of the three hospitality stops are on Midland Avenue and US 24, the same downtown stretch the parade uses. That's why Saturday works so well. If you end the tour where you started, you're already downtown when it gets dark.
What's behind the five doors
The 2026 tour page lists four homes in Woodland Park and one stop in Green Mountain Falls. The tour describes each one on a single page.
- Kirk Home. A remodeled cabin from the 1940s Pike View Lodge, according to the tour. The original moss-rock fireplace is still there, Pikes Peak is in view, and a 1932 Ford street rod is part of the visit.
- Banner Home. Pikes Peak views, two decks and several gathering spaces, with holiday decorating by Deb Huber.
- Johnson Home. A mountain-view house built in 2023 and designed for hosting a crowd. It sits on the same road as the Kirk Home, so the two together show close to 80 years of mountain building.
- Woodruff/Gould Home. The fourth Woodland Park stop. Details are in the Tour Guide handed out at the Woodland Professional Building.
- Horse Wellness Meadow, Green Mountain Falls. A horse sanctuary built in 2025, decorated with an equine theme, where you can meet the horses.
You've probably seen the Horse Wellness Meadow from the highway even if you've never stopped. The Gazette reported that it opened in 2025 with six horses on 25 acres, on a mountain above Green Mountain Falls that's visible from eastbound US 24. It's the second location for Elite Equine Rescue, which Gina Hluska founded, and it gives horses coming off racing and performance careers time to recover. The Gazette described it as a project of Elite Equine Co. and the Historic Green Mountain Falls Foundation, funded in part by a Kirkpatrick Family Fund grant.
Of the five stops, the Meadow is the only one down Ute Pass. The other four are in Woodland Park, so a lot of visitors save Green Mountain Falls for its own trip, either first thing Saturday or on Sunday.
Where the $20 goes, and how long it's been going there
The tour has been raising money in Teller County since 1999, and it began with one goal. The tour's history page says it was started by Dickson Performing Arts Center, Inc., which wanted a permanent performing-arts building for the school district. That goal was met when Dickson Auditorium opened in September 2005. After DPAC dissolved, it gave the event to the Pikes Peak Regional Medical Center Foundation, which in 2011 brought in other local service organizations to share the proceeds. Tweeds Fine Furnishings became presenting sponsor in 2012. In 2016 the tour became its own 501(c)(3), Tweeds Holiday Home Tour, Inc., run by local volunteers.
Since it started, the tour has raised $336,493 for local nonprofits. Its stated purpose is to fund Greater Teller County groups working in arts and culture, human services, environmental stewardship, and sports and recreation.
The 2026 beneficiaries cover a lot of everyday Teller County:
| Beneficiary | What the tour money supports |
|---|---|
| Community Cupboard of Woodland Park | Food for about 1,600 families a year across Teller, Park, El Paso and Douglas counties |
| FaithfulHearts Equine Learning Center | Expanded facilities for equine-assisted services |
| Friends of Mueller State Park | Care for the park; the group recently added trail signage, two e-bikes, a mobile space observatory for youth programs and support for the park's Dark Sky initiative |
| Teller Senior Coalition | Transportation and Home Delivered Meals for more than 1,000 seniors |
| Teller Trail Team | Building and protecting trails; the group has helped secure more than 100 acres of open space |
Take a trail you hiked this summer, a Mueller visit, or a neighbor who gets meals delivered. There's a good chance one of these five groups is behind it. Your ticket pays for them, and buying one at the Woodland Professional Building takes about as long as getting your coffee there.
The rest of the stretch from Thanksgiving to Dec. 6
Saturday, Dec. 5 is the busiest day, but it's the middle of a longer run. The Pikes Peak Courier's Mountain of Art column counts more than a week of free art events in town, from Nov. 28 through Dec. 6, and lists the dates around the tour:
| Date | What's on | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Sat., Nov. 28 | Art fairs, maker's markets and an art show | Our Lady of the Woods Catholic Church, Tava House, Ute Pass Cultural Center |
| Sun., Nov. 29, 11 a.m. | Artists Sunday with Reserve Our Gallery, plus Small Brew Sunday | Tava House, 120 S. Center St. |
| Fri., Dec. 4 | First Friday Art Walk, "Elf on the Shelf" theme; City of Woodland Park tree lighting | Downtown |
| Sat., Dec. 5, morning | Pancake breakfast with Santa and art activities for kids, hosted by the Ute Pass Kiwanis | Per Kiwanis |
| Sat., Dec. 5, 2–4 p.m. | "Value of White Art Celebration" | Reserve Our Gallery |
| Sat., Dec. 5, 6 p.m. | Lights Above the Clouds Parade, about an hour long, with an awards after-party | US 24; after-party at Ute Pass Cultural Center |
| Sun., Dec. 6, 4 p.m. | Woodland Park Wind Symphony holiday concert | Nazarene Church |
At the Art Walk, you'll find the elf at each location and get extra entries in the door prize drawing. The parade after-party also has a crazy hat contest, and this year's theme is America's 250th anniversary. For the latest on the tree lighting and the parade, check woodlandpark.gov.
The tour's two days line up with this schedule in a helpful way. Saturday's tour hours fall between the Kiwanis breakfast and the parade. On Sunday, Santa is at the Senior Center until 2 p.m. and the tour's listed hours end at 4, the same time the Wind Symphony starts.
A Saturday, Dec. 5 that fits it all
Here's one way to do the whole day without rushing, using only the times above:
- Morning: Pancake breakfast with Santa from the Ute Pass Kiwanis, then pick up tickets and a Tour Guide at the Woodland Professional Building after it opens at 9:30.
- Late morning to midafternoon: The four Woodland Park homes. Stop at the Senior Center when you need music and a snack. If you'd like Santa photos, save those for Sunday between 10 and 2.
- 2 to 4 p.m.: The "Value of White" celebration at Reserve Our Gallery, if you can fit one more downtown stop in.
- Before 5 p.m.: Back to Tweeds or the Woodland Professional Building for the artisan shop and one more look at the silent auction.
- 6 p.m.: Find a spot on US 24, preferably near a warming fire, for the Lights Above the Clouds Parade, and then go to the after-party at Ute Pass Cultural Center.
Leave the Horse Wellness Meadow for Sunday morning. The horses are in Green Mountain Falls, and a separate drive down Ute Pass makes a quieter start to the second day than fitting it into Saturday.
Every year, a few homes on this tour show what different builders have done with Woodland Park's land, light and long winters, from a 1940s cabin with its moss-rock fireplace to a house finished in 2023. If you leave the tour curious about what your own place is worth, or what a similar home on your road might sell for, Gold District Realty can help. Get an Instant Property Valuation, and when you're ready, Ruthie will talk it through with you over coffee.
