Is it too early for Christmas lights in Nashville in 2026? No: Thanksgiving falls on Thursday, November 26, and Nashville's big light shows begin opening on November 6, so lights glowing before Thanksgiving are right in step with the season. If you hang strands by hand, the date takes some planning, and with permanent lighting the question mostly goes away, as the sections below explain.
Thanksgiving 2026 and the Nashville calendar
Thanksgiving is on Thursday, November 26, 2026, which is the fourth Thursday of the month. That leaves Friday, November 27 as the usual "lights go up" day for many households. Around Nashville, the first events begin before that.
The dates below come from our Nashville-area holiday lights calendar, where every row links the organizer's own page:
- November 6: A Country Christmas opens at Gaylord Opryland and runs to January 2, 2027. See the calendar.
- November 13: Glow Wild opens at the Nashville Zoo and runs to January 3, 2027. See the calendar.
- November 20: Holiday LIGHTS opens at Cheekwood Estate and Gardens and stays open through January 3, 2027. The FrankTown Festival of Lights drive-through in Franklin opens the same day and stays nightly until December 31. See the calendar.
- November 24: The Smyrna Christmas Tree Lighting is at the Smyrna Train Depot, two days before Thanksgiving. See the calendar.
- December 4: Franklin, Goodlettsville, Nolensville, Murfreesboro and Fairview each hold a tree lighting. See the calendar.
- December 7: The Brentwood Christmas Tree Lighting is at the Brentwood Library tree at 5:30 pm. See the calendar.
The calendar shows 10 confirmed tree lightings between November 24 and December 7, so most official switch-ons come after Thanksgiving, while the big light shows start before it. Dates can change, so check the organizer's page before you head out.
So, is it too early?
There is no rule. Plenty of Nashville households switch on the weekend after Halloween, others wait for the Friday after Thanksgiving, and some hold out for the tree lighting in their own town. Lights up before Thanksgiving are not out of place when Cheekwood has already opened its gates and the zoo has been lit for a week.
With seasonal strands, the timing matters more, because someone has to climb a ladder, hang every clip and plug in every run, and then do it all again in reverse in January. People tend to choose a date early because getting it done feels better than waiting.
Why permanent lighting changes the question
Permanent roofline lighting is already on the house. It sits in a channel along the fascia, color-matched to your trim, so nothing goes up for the holidays and nothing comes down after. Our installers put it in during the fall, or any other time of year, and the install itself takes 8 to 10 hours for an average home.
The color is not fixed in place. You run the lights from an app on iOS or Android, and each light has color diodes plus a dedicated white one. A look is just a schedule in the app. That makes "too early" a matter of what you pick for a given date:
- October and early November: warm white along the roofline, for fall evenings.
- The day you decide: switch to red and green, whether that is November 20 for Cheekwood opening night, Thanksgiving evening, or the night of your town's tree lighting.
- New Year: go back to warm white, or pick any other color.
You can set the change days ahead of time, so the roofline turns red and green on its own. There are 256 preset scenes in the app, and you can see them on our presets page. Using the app costs nothing each month or year.
So the debate about whether the lights go up before Thanksgiving turns into a choice you can make, and change, in a few taps. Nobody needs to be home or on a ladder. If your neighbors start early, you can match them. If you would rather wait for the Brentwood tree lighting on December 7, you can wait.
Fall is a good time to install
The weather in October and early November is usually mild, which suits roofline work. Doing the install ahead of the holiday season also means the lights are in place and tested well before the first date you care about. If you are weighing this against hanging strands again this year, our permanent vs seasonal lights comparison lays out how the two differ, and the permanent Christmas lights in Nashville page shows how the install works.
At 6 to 12 hours a day, the system works out to about 10 to 20 years, and caring for the lights is as simple as rinsing them when you rinse the gutters. Once the system is on the house, every holiday after this one is a few taps in the app.
Get your roofline ready
If you want warm white for fall and red and green by Thanksgiving week, the next step is the quote form. Send the quote form and an installer will call you; your free estimate follows. Start at Get a free estimate.