Hudsonville's Holiday Season Now Starts at 6 P.M.

At 6 p.m. on Thursday, November 19, the tree in the Gemmen's Ace Hardware lot at 3488 Kelly St. will be lit. Half an hour later, the first floats of Hudsonville's nighttime holiday parade will start their loop along Cherry Avenue, Harvey Street and School Avenue. This is the fourth year the parade has run at night. Corewell Health presents it, and the Hudsonville Area Chamber of Commerce bills it around the holiday lights.

Four years in, the evening start shows up all over town. Through late fall and into December, many of Hudsonville's community events start at 6 p.m. Since last year's parade, downtown has also added places to stop on foot around that hour.

The Evening, Hour by Hour

The Chamber's event page lays out the night.

1. 4:30 p.m. Tree-lighting activities open in the Gemmen's Ace Hardware parking lot on Kelly Street. Hudsonville Family Dentistry offers free hot cocoa and runs the kids' activities.
2. 4:30 to 6 p.m. Food trucks Pronto Pups, Big Red's BBQ and Travelin Tom's Coffee will be in the lot, along with a fire performer, a petting zoo, horse-and-carriage rides, face painting, a s'mores station and photos with Santa.
3. 6 p.m. The tree is lit.
4. 6:30 p.m. The nighttime parade steps off and follows Cherry Avenue, Harvey Street and School Avenue through the heart of downtown.

Nearly every activity in the lot has a local sponsor attached. The Chamber lists them:

The Chamber notes that public restrooms are available at Terra Square and portable restrooms at the tree lighting. Free parking is spread across several lots a short walk from the event. Those two notes matter more than they look, because they connect the hardware store lot to Terra Square. Most of downtown's newest stops sit in the stretch between them.

A Drink in Hand Along the Route

The Chamber's page also mentions the social district along the parade route, where participating businesses can sell drinks you can carry outside. According to the City of Hudsonville's social district page, the district runs Monday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. The page links a boundary map and lists the participating businesses.

With a 10 p.m. close, the district stays open more than three hours after the parade starts. On parade night you can stay downtown after the floats go by. You can also check the map ahead of time to see where the district's boundary falls along the route.

Legacy Winery & Spirits, one of the businesses on the city's social district page, is spending its first holiday season downtown. FOX 17 reported in August that Legacy had started its soft opening in downtown Hudsonville and planned a grand opening for August 22. The station's story focused on Legacy's barrel-sampling experience and its cocktail and mocktail menu.

What's New at the Terra Square End

Two of this year's newcomers are clustered where School Avenue meets Chicago Drive.

Anna's Little Bakery, a bakery-café at 5400 School Ave., sits on the ground floor of the Terra Station apartments near Chicago Drive. WOOD TV8 reported that the bakery opened in early August and held its ribbon cutting that same week. FOX 17 covered its grand opening at the same address on August 18. School Avenue is one of the three parade streets, so this is the first year a bakery has been on that stretch for parade night.

Inside Terra Square, at 3380 Chicago Drive, Suite 110, is Pinwheel Kitchen. It's a fast-casual concept from New Holland Brewing, and Pinwheel Kitchen's own site lists the Hudsonville location as "Opening November 2026." The site describes a takeout-first kitchen with about 20 seats and a patio, and invites guests to "take your Pinwheels out to explore the social district." MLive reported that Pinwheel Kitchen is moving into the former Bosco's Pub space, which closed in June 2025.

The City of Hudsonville's June announcement lists the menu: signature pinwheels like the Trendsetters with hot honey, the Bacon Dill-icious and the Backyard Bacon BBQ, Cinna-Wheels for dessert, plus snacks, salads and non-alcoholic drinks. In that same announcement, New Holland President and CEO Brett VanderKamp tied the move directly to the town's calendar:

"Hudsonville's energy and events make this the perfect next chapter for the Pinwheel model."

City Manager R. Tyler Dotson said in the same release that the city's first conversations with Pinwheel leadership dated back to "late last year." Put a takeout-first counter beside a social district that stays open until 10 p.m., inside the building where the Chamber sends parade-goers for restrooms, and you can see what VanderKamp meant by events.

The Evenings That Follow

Parade night is the biggest of Hudsonville's late-fall evenings, but several other events start at the same hour. On the City of Hudsonville's November calendar, two events bracket the parade:

• Blooms of Remembrance, Friday, November 13, at 6 p.m.
• Night Hike, Saturday, November 21, at 6 p.m., two days after the parade.

Gary Byker Library continues the pattern into December. Its event calendar lists a Colonial Chocolate Program on Thursday, December 3, from 6 to 7 p.m. in the library's lower-level program room.

Here's how the next month lines up:

Brunch with Santa is the season's one morning event. Terra Square lists it for Saturday, December 12, from 10 a.m. to noon, with food from Distinctive Catering and Sprinkles Donut Shop, photos with Santa and family activities. Even that one sends families back to Terra Square, the same place the parade crowd will use as its home base on the 19th.

Where the Night Ends Up

Put the details together and parade night covers a walkable stretch of downtown. Kelly Street hosts the tree and the food trucks. The floats run along Cherry, Harvey and School. Terra Square has the restrooms, the Pinwheel Kitchen counter, and the Santa brunch three weeks later. Anna's Little Bakery now sits on School Avenue, and the social district, with Legacy Winery & Spirits on the city's list, stays open until 10 p.m.

When the parade moved to nighttime four years ago, downtown had fewer places to stop between the tree lighting and the trip home. This November there are more.

At Bryan Anderson, we keep track of how evenings like this one change the way downtown Hudsonville gets used, from the blocks along the parade route to the homes within walking distance of Terra Square. If you're curious how your own street fits into that picture, we'd be glad to talk it through. Get your Instant Home Valuation whenever you're ready.