On Sunday, December 6, the 70th La Jolla Christmas Parade starts at Kline Street and Girard Avenue. It heads up Girard past Warwick's, Sigi's and the Wells Fargo corner, turns onto Prospect Street at the Grande Colonial and the Athenaeum, and finishes near Draper Avenue. From there the crowd walks over to the Holiday Festival at the La Jolla Recreation Center. This year's theme is "A Village Christmas."
The Girard Avenue on that route is the same street the La Jolla Community Foundation has spent five years planning to rebuild. Its building permit came through in August. The foundation's chair now says construction will begin in "the early part of 2027." Unless that date slips again, the parade and the holiday events on either side of it will be the Village's last season on Girard with its current sidewalks, curbs and lighting.
The parade covers both phases of the rebuild
The streetscape plan splits Girard into two pieces. Phase 1 runs from Prospect to Wall. Phase 2 runs from Wall to Silverado. Together they would add 63 benches, 49 trees, 51 lights and 9,100 square feet of public space. Both phases also get curb extensions and traffic-calming measures.
The parade enters Girard south of Silverado, at Kline, and leaves it at Prospect, so every block in both phases is on the route.
| Stretch of the parade route | Streetscape status as of late October 2026 |
|---|---|
| Girard, Kline to Silverado | Parade start; not part of either phase |
| Girard, Silverado to Wall | Phase 2; permitted, still raising money |
| Girard, Wall to Prospect | Phase 1; fully funded, construction expected early 2027 |
| Prospect, Girard toward Draper | Parade finish leg; not part of the project |
Phase 1 money comes from three places: $850,000 from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, $1 million from the State of California and about $3 million from local donors. The permit covers both phases and the construction drawings are finished, so fundraising has moved on to Phase 2.
Why the start date keeps moving
The federal grant is what pushed construction into the new year. HUD's requirements differ from the state grant's, so the project had to go out to bid again, and that delayed construction until January at the earliest. Even January is uncertain. At the October 14 La Jolla Village Merchants Association meeting, foundation executive director Lidia Rossner said, as La Jolla Light reported in the San Diego Union-Tribune, "In theory, it is possible that we start sometime in January, but we don't know."
The next day, at the Enhance La Jolla meeting, foundation chair Phyllis Pfeiffer confirmed the early-2027 window and called the schedule "a moving goal post." Getting the permit took about seven rounds of revisions with the city. Rossner put the total cost "closer to $8 (million)," up from an earlier estimate of $7.43 million. The largest single expense is new stormwater drainage channels, which she said matter more with an El Niño season coming. Some items were dropped along the way, including a mural that would have been painted on the ground, because they could have created liability for the city or the foundation.
Merchants are excited about the result and worried about the work. LJVMA executive director Jodi Rudick summed it up at the same meeting:
"Some of the merchants are telling us there's going to be major construction — and that of course is always a concern — and loss of parking. Those are the bad news parts of this project. The good news is that it's going to be a really beautiful project."
That leaves the holiday calendar below as the last full run of Village events before the work begins.
The season on the current street, in order
- First Friday Art Walk, Friday, November 6, 4 to 7 p.m. It's the first evening of the season in the Village. The merchants association lists it on its fall calendar.
- La Jolla Village Holiday Open House, Sunday, November 22, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Participating shops plan their own music, treats, activities and promotions, so the afternoon looks a little different at each door.
- La Jolla Christmas Parade & Holiday Festival, Sunday, December 6. The parade steps off at 1 p.m., and the festival at the La Jolla Recreation Center runs from 1 to 5 p.m.
- Children's Pool closes Tuesday, December 15. Every year the city closes public access from December 15 through May 15 for harbor seal pupping season. On a post-parade walk along the coast, that week is the last chance this season to get down to the beach there.
The parade's own website gives two start times. The main schedule says 1 p.m. and an FAQ on the same page says 1:30. Check ljparade.com the week of the event. Arriving for 1 p.m. covers both.
Parade day: what gets towed and when
On December 6, no-parking enforcement starts in two waves. Some blocks clear at 8:30 a.m. and the rest at 11:30 a.m. The organizers' map warns that "vehicles will be towed promptly." The 2026 map lists both sides of these blocks:
- Girard Avenue from Torrey Pines Road to Kline, and Girard from Kline to Prospect
- Prospect Street from Girard to La Jolla Boulevard
- Kline Street from Ivanhoe to Fay
- Herschel Avenue from Torrey Pines Road to Silverado
- Torrey Pines Road from Herschel to Virginia Way
- Draper Avenue from Silverado to Kline
- Ivanhoe Avenue from Ivanhoe East to Torrey Pines Road
- Silverado Street from Herschel to Girard
- Wall Street from Girard to the alley
Each block on the map is labeled with its own deadline. If you park on Kline or Draper any time that morning, check the no-parking map first. Organizers ask spectators to park outside the event perimeter. ADA parking is in the Wells Fargo lot and requires a permit, and an ADA viewing area is marked along Girard.
Parade entries for 2026 are closed, though organizers will discuss waitlist spots. Santa visit reservations and Christmas Market vendor applications are open on the parade site now.
The Village around the parade
The work on Girard hasn't started, but other changes have already reached the Village this fall, and two of them affect a holiday trip there.
Coming in on Torrey Pines Road at night. The long-awaited project to replace the K-rail with a permanent guardrail on Torrey Pines Road was scheduled to start Tuesday, October 6, and run through March 2027. Crews work 7 p.m. to 3 a.m., Sunday through Thursday. The northbound bike lane stays closed for the length of the project, and pedestrians get a protected detour whenever the sidewalk is closed. The weekend events above all fall outside those work hours. The First Friday Art Walk is on a Friday, which is also outside the work schedule. A weeknight dinner on Prospect in December means driving through the work zone.
New signs and a discount app. Merchants installed 24 directional banners on August 23 and 24, pointing to attractions, coastal landmarks and transit stops, and five more are planned. In September they launched the free La Jolla Village Savings Pass, a phone app with offers from participating shops. One offer is 10% off admission to the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego through the end of the year. Both were set up for the current street, and the open house and parade are their first big test.
An outing for the out-of-town guests. On October 21, Birch Aquarium opened "The Axolotl's Garden/El Jardín del Ajolote," with axolotl habitats, other species from Mexico and artwork. It's included with regular admission. When visiting family arrives for the holidays, the aquarium makes a good morning before an afternoon in the Village.
Enhance La Jolla is also cleaning up the street before the rebuild. The board plans to test sandblasting on one block to remove sidewalk stains, some of them decades old. Board president Ed Witt noted that some of the Village sidewalks are 100 years old. A test date hasn't been set.
Changes to Girard Avenue will show up in daily Village errands, in parking and in what buyers notice when they visit. If you own near the Village and want to talk through how the streetscape timeline fits your own plans, Pacific Harmony Realty is glad to schedule a free consultation or prepare a complimentary home valuation, and to talk it over in person, on Girard or anywhere else.
