Downtown Orinda's Winter Lights Started on a Sleepy Hollow Street. Here's the Season They Kick Off.
November 5, 2026
November 5, 2026
Carol Brovelli loved the holiday lights along Lombardy Lane in Sleepy Hollow. She also loved Lafayette's downtown display. The Orinda News reported that she put the two together and asked why Orinda couldn't do the same. She raised the idea at a Sleepy Hollow Neighborhood Association meeting, and Kim Wirtz Straub signed on right away.
That conversation became Light Up Orinda. The white LED lights on downtown trees every winter are a Sleepy Hollow idea carried down the hill into the Village and the Theatre District. The program runs on donations, and it grew quickly. On Thursday, November 19, it switches on for its third season. Before that season ends, the Orinda Theatre turns 85.
Many California cities pay for holiday lights out of the municipal budget. Orinda doesn't have that money. Jim Keefe, president of the Orinda Community Foundation's board of trustees, told The Orinda News that this gap made the decision to back the program an easy one. The foundation took Light Up Orinda on as a sponsor, giving it a nonprofit home and financial backing. Brovelli and Straub took care of the groundwork: which trees to wrap, where the power would come from, contacting property owners, and raising the money.
The first plan, described by The Orinda News in September 2024, was 32 trees on Orinda's "gateway" streets. On the south side, that meant 17 trees along Brookwood Road and in its traffic circle. On the north side, it meant six trees on Camino Sobrante in front of the FedEx store toward Orinda Motors, three in the traffic triangle, and six olive trees in the Orinda Library plaza. "Since the City's annual budget can't accommodate a holiday lighting plan, financial contributions from residents and local businesses are vital," Brovelli told the paper.
Donors gave more than that plan needed. Here's how the program has grown, per Lamorinda Weekly's coverage of the 2025 lighting:
| Season | Trees lit | What paid for it |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 goal | 32 | Fundraising campaign through the Orinda Community Foundation |
| 2024 actual | 40 | Almost $45,000 raised, enough for the first year's bills plus relighting and upkeep for winter 2025 |
| 2025 | 111 | 71 new trees, with extra support from the Orinda Community Foundation |
That's almost three times as many trees in two seasons, all paid for by donors. Lamorinda Weekly noted that before the program, complaints about the lack of holiday decorations downtown came up regularly. Until then, the Orinda Garden Club's wreaths were about the only decorations around town. The Orinda Community Foundation lists Light Up Orinda among its 2026 beneficiaries.
Last year the switch flipped early, on Thursday, November 6. The lighting shared the evening with a food truck event, and young Lamorinda Idol contestants sang before the 111 trees came on across Orinda Village and the Theatre District.
This year, according to Light Up Orinda, the lighting is Thursday, November 19, at 5 p.m. at the Orinda Library Plaza. The organizers promise local hot chocolate, local wine and local entertainment. The lights stay up from November through January.
The tree lighting is just the start of the evening. Downtown Orinda's events calendar lists a free movie night at the Orinda Theatre, 4 Orinda Theatre Square, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. the same night. No tickets are needed and seating is first-come, first-served. The theatre posts the month's film on its own site. That leaves about an hour and a half after the lights come on to walk from the Library Plaza to Theatre Square.
That gap lines up with downtown's newest bar. Bar Sorso opened to its first guests on September 23 in the old Starbucks space at 2 Orinda Theatre Square, Suite 106, serving cocktails and Italian small plates, Bay Area Telegraph reported. It opens at 4 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, so it's open on the night of the lighting.
The day starts earlier for some. At 10:30 that morning, the Murder Over Easy book club meets at Orinda Books, 276 Village Square, to discuss Hercule Poirot's Christmas. The next morning, Friday, November 20, the Orinda Woman's Club holds its 40th Festival of Trees fundraiser. It runs from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the San Ramon Marriott, 2600 Bishop Drive, The Orinda News reported.
The 2025 expansion carried the lights into the Theatre District. This year the theatre itself has a milestone. The Orinda News reports that the Orinda Theatre turns 85 on December 27. To mark it, Sony and Columbia Pictures made a new restoration of "Texas," the William Holden and Glenn Ford film the theatre opened with. The Orinda will be the first theatre to show it. Walt Disney's "Fantasia" follows for four days, December 28 through 31.
The same article says December 27 also closes out a series. The Cinema Craft Series of art, foreign and unusual films didn't draw enough support or ticket sales in 2026 and won't return next year. Its last film is "The Country Girl" with Grace Kelly, also on December 27.
Here's the season under the lights, in order, from the dates published by Light Up Orinda, Downtown Orinda, Orinda Books and the theatre:
Ticket prices vary by event, so the theatre recommends checking orindamovies.com and buying in advance. It also sends a weekly email newsletter, with sign-up on the site's front page.
The program still depends on donations. Brovelli and Straub said from the start that they would add trees as the money allowed, and that's how 32 planned trees became 111. Donations go through the Orinda Community Foundation via lightuporinda.org, and the foundation lets donors earmark gifts for a specific project like Light Up Orinda. The foundation has no paid staff, Keefe told The Orinda News, so donations go further. When the lights come down in January, the lighting itself will have been paid for by donors, and the idea will have come from a Sleepy Hollow neighborhood meeting.
I'm proud to live and work in a town where one neighbor's idea at a neighborhood meeting can grow into 111 lit trees, and I hope to see you at the Library Plaza on November 19. If the season also has you thinking about your own place on the hill, Alexis Thompson is happy to help. Start with a free home valuation, and we can talk over hot chocolate.
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