Dickens of a Christmas is coming to Franklin. Here is what it means for your lighting timeline.
Franklin's Dickens of a Christmas, the Heritage Foundation of Williamson County's Victorian-themed street festival on Main Street, returns for its 41st year on December 12-13, 2026. It is one of the biggest fixed dates on the Williamson County holiday calendar, and a solid date to plan permanent lighting around if you want the house lit before the season's biggest weekends.
- December 12-13, 2026, the 41st annual event
- Main Street, Downtown Franklin, TN
- Saturday 10 AM to 6 PM, Sunday 11 AM to 5 PM
Why plan a lighting timeline around a street festival?
A lot of Williamson County households already have this weekend circled: family visiting, guests staying over, photos taken downtown. Working backward from a fixed date beats working backward from a vague "sometime before the holidays." If the goal is a home fully installed, tested and lit before out-of-town guests arrive for Dickens weekend, or before your own family's holiday gatherings start, December 12 gives an actual date to plan against instead of an open-ended one.
When is Dickens of a Christmas 2026?
December 12-13, 2026, Saturday 10 AM to 6 PM and Sunday 11 AM to 5 PM, on Main Street in Downtown Franklin.
The event is produced by the Heritage Foundation of Williamson County, which also runs Main Street Festival and PumpkinFest, and its own site lists those same dates and hours.
2026 is the 41st Annual Dickens of a Christmas; the Heritage Foundation's own listing for the 2025 edition, its 40th, describes a record 150,000 visitors in 2024, its most recently published attendance figure.
The organizer's own listings also show the schedule can shift from year to year: the 2025 edition is listed as a single day, December 13, while 2026 is listed as two, December 12-13. That alone is a reason to build in a buffer rather than plan an installation for the week of the event itself.
What should actually inform your timeline?
- Design first
The design is settled before installation day: where the channel runs, which rooflines, and the look you want.
- Installation itself
Installation is scheduled around your property and current weather, not around any single date on the calendar.
- Working backward from a real date
If the goal is a house lit before December 12, the installers work backward from that date with you, which beats a generic "book by fall" line.
What goes up, how it looks the rest of the year and how the app runs it are all laid out on our permanent Christmas lights page.
Installs go up after the deposit if weather and the schedule allow, so start that conversation early if the goal is a house lit by December 12: the full timeline is on our FAQ.
See the dates for this year's Nashville-area light events on our 2026 holiday lights calendar.
Ready to plan around your own date?
Whether it is Dickens weekend, a specific holiday gathering, or just wanting your home lit before the season gets busy, the installers can walk you through what actually needs to happen, and by when, for your property.
Licensed, insured and certified installers on every job we take.