Staines starts Christmas with its parade on Sunday 22 November 2026, 10.30am on the High Street, themed Movies. Plus every switch-on across Spelthorne.

Staines-upon-Thames opens its Christmas season with the Christmas Parade on Sunday 22 November 2026. It starts at 10.30am at the corner of Tilly’s Lane and runs down the High Street, and this year’s theme is Movies. The event runs until 4pm, and it is free.

That is confirmed on Visit Staines’ own event listing, which gives a start time of 10.30am and an end time of 4pm.

What actually happens on the day

The parade is put on by Visit Staines, the town centre Business Improvement District, together with the Elmsleigh Centre and Two Rivers. Father Christmas and local community groups walk the route.

The route, in the organisers’ own words: it starts at the corner of Tilly’s Lane, travels down the High Street, turns into Two Rivers, goes around the Costa Ring and comes back.

After the parade, free street performers and face painters work across the town centre, and Santa moves inside the Elmsleigh Centre. Community groups that want to join the parade apply through a form on the Visit Staines listing.

There is no separate lights switch-on ceremony in Staines

If you are searching for a Staines Christmas lights switch-on, the parade is what you want. Visit Staines describes it as the event that kick-starts the Christmas season in the town, and neither the BID nor Spelthorne Borough Council has announced a separate evening switch-on for the town centre.

The lights themselves are a BID spend rather than a council one. Visit Staines says on its own homepage that it funds 90 Christmas decoration motifs in the town centre and two Christmas selfie points, alongside its 170 flower displays.

Every other festive switch-on in Spelthorne

Only two dates in the borough are confirmed for 2026 so far. The rest are last year’s, listed here so you know what to expect and when to look again.

Confirmed for 2026:

  • Staines Christmas Parade, Sunday 22 November 2026, 10.30am to 4pm, High Street
  • Shepperton Big Tree Night, Wednesday 9 December 2026, 5pm to 8.30pm, Shepperton High Street. Full running order, road closures and bus diversions on our Big Tree Night page

Ran in 2025, 2026 dates not yet published. These come from Spelthorne Borough Council’s Christmas events page, which was last modified on 3 December 2025 and still shows the 2025 season:

  • Ashford Wide Christmas Market, Church Road, Ashford. Ran Wednesday 3 December 2025, 5pm to 8pm, with carol singing, a free Santa’s grotto in the library, children’s rides and more than 40 stalls. Ashford Wide’s own events page listed nothing for December 2026 when we checked on 5 September.
  • Sunbury Christmas street party, The Avenue Parade, Sunbury-on-Thames. Ran Thursday 4 December 2025, 5pm to 8pm, with the road closed to traffic, a Santa’s grotto and a kids’ zone.
  • Christmas in Stanwell, Friday 5 December 2025. The lantern parade left Stanwell Family Centre on Hadrian Way at 5.30pm, followed by carols round the tree outside the Sir John Gibson from 6pm.
  • Stanwell Christmas grotto and snow globe, Sunday 7 December 2025, 11am to 4pm, at the Community Building on Long Recreation Ground.

Two things follow from those dates. The Ashford, Sunbury and Stanwell events all landed in the first week of December and on weekday evenings, so they are easy to miss if you only check weekends. And the council page is a year out of date right now, which is worth knowing before you plan around it.

Getting into town for the parade

The parade is on a Sunday morning, which is the easiest time of the week to park in Staines. Tariffs across the borough’s car parks changed on 8 September 2026, so check parking in Staines for what the Elmsleigh, Riverside, Bridge Street and Kingston Road car parks now cost. For anything happening on the roads that week, see Staines roadworks and travel.

No road closure has been published for the parade. The stretch of High Street it uses is pedestrianised, and Visit Staines has not announced any traffic management. We will add it here if that changes.

Still to come

The 2025 season also had a Staines Market Christmas event with a free Santa’s grotto on Saturday 20 December, and a first Staines New Year Street Fair over 28 to 30 December, three days of small rides and street entertainment at the top of the High Street run by Billy Traylen with Visit Staines backing. Neither has a 2026 date yet. Both were announced in November last year, so expect the same again.

Sources