Light Up the Galt Is Tonight. The Rest of the Beach Lights Up on Its Own Schedule

When does the beach turn into the holidays? It depends on which part of the beach you mean. On the Galt Ocean Mile it happens at 6:30 tonight, when the tree goes on at Northeast 33rd Street. Near Las Olas and A1A it happens a week from tonight. In Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, north of the Galt, it waits until December.

Each stretch has its own host and its own night. The City of Fort Lauderdale runs a series it calls Light Up the Holidays, and each event in it happens somewhere specific: Riverwalk downtown, the Galt, Las Olas Oceanside Park, Sistrunk, Carter Park. Lauderdale-by-the-Sea is its own town and keeps its own calendar. Put the dates side by side and the beach's holiday season comes on over about four weeks, one stretch at a time.

Downtown got its turn first. Light Up Lauderdale started its 10-week run along the New River at Esplanade Park last Thursday, Nov. 5. On the barrier island, the season starts tonight.

Tonight on 33rd Street

Light Up the Galt is a joint event of the City of Fort Lauderdale and North Beach Restaurants and Shoppes, and it fills Northeast 33rd Street rather than a park. The Galt Mile Community Association's announcement from Oct. 28 places it on 33rd Street and promises Santa.

The city's schedule for the evening:

• 5:30 to 8:30 p.m.: live music on 33rd Street, a Letters to Santa station with make-and-take crafts, Gingerbread Man and gingerbread house photos, and a holiday pop-up gift market with activities from local businesses
• 6 to 8:30 p.m.: strolling characters, including the Grinch and Cindy Lou, Elf and Jovie, plus a Nutcracker stilt walker and balloon artists
• 6:30 p.m.: the tree lighting
• 7 to 8:30 p.m.: live holiday music on 33rd Street

The pop-up gift market makes this one different from the Las Olas event next week, which centers on a light display, a concert and a kids zone. The Galt evening is built around the street's shops and restaurants, so it works more like a block party than a stage show. The event is free.

A Week Later, the Lights Move South to Las Olas

Next Thursday, Nov. 19, the season reaches the stretch most visitors think of as Fort Lauderdale Beach. Light Up the Beach runs from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. at Las Olas Oceanside Park, 3000 E. Las Olas Blvd. It turns on more than 50,000 holiday lights along the beachfront and brings back "Olas," the city's 20-foot beach snowman at A1A and Las Olas Boulevard.

The Galt's event happens along a commercial street. Here, the lights themselves are the event. According to the official flyer, the Kids Zone opens at 5:30, the lighting ceremony is at 6:30, and a holiday concert starts at 7. The Fort Lauderdale Symphonic Winds perform. The kids zone has Santa, inflatables and slides, and the flyer also lists pony rides.

If you're driving in from another part of the island, the flyer's map is worth checking before you go. It marks the Las Olas Parking Garage and shows which nearby lots are city-run and which are private.

Lauderdale-by-the-Sea Waits for December

Lauderdale-by-the-Sea is a separate town, and its calendar comes from the town, not the city. Yesterday it held its Veterans Day Celebration at El Prado Park, 4500 El Mar Drive. Its holiday events start three weeks after the Galt's.

Christmas By-The-Sea is Wednesday, Dec. 2, from 5 to 8 p.m. It's the only weeknight event in this sequence that doesn't fall on a Thursday. The town has been taking applications for its vendor village.

Four days later, on Sunday, Dec. 6, the town's Farmers' Market returns to El Prado Park. It runs every Sunday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. through May 2, 2027. For people on the north end of the beach, the holiday weekend events end with the season, but the Sunday market keeps going for five months.

The Strip the Lights Shine On Has Changed Since Summer

The 50,000 lights at Las Olas will light up a stretch of beach where the restaurant lineup has shifted since the spring.

The biggest is at the W Fort Lauderdale, 401 N. Fort Lauderdale Beach Blvd. Motek by the Sea is moving into the former El Vez space there. In August the Sun Sentinel reported that owner Charlie Levy described the oceanfront setting as central to the concept. Visit Lauderdale's Oct. 14 release said Motek would open at the W this November, describing its "signature sunshine-hued aesthetic" and family-style Eastern Mediterranean dining. Before that, limited service began. Motek's Fort Lauderdale page has offered takeout and delivery only, with a pickup area in the hotel courtyard, and has described the full Motek by the Sea experience as coming soon.

Two spots have closed, one on each of the stretches lighting up this month. Con Murphy's Ocean Bar & Grill at 7 S. Fort Lauderdale Beach Blvd. in Beach Place closed in July, according to the center's leasing agent as quoted by the Sun Sentinel. On the Galt, the same Sun Sentinel roundup reported that Giorgio's Bistro & Bakery at 3537 Galt Ocean Drive closed during the spring and summer. So if you walk Galt Ocean Drive before tonight's tree lighting, you'll pass one storefront that was open last holiday season.

The new restaurants worth planning a December dinner around are mostly off the sand. The same Visit Lauderdale release lists Pelican Landing, the two-story, open-air restaurant at Pier Sixty-Six Hotel and Residences, as returning this fall over what it calls the largest superyacht marina on the East Coast. It also lists Sweetwaters, which recently debuted in Huizenga Park on the New River.

How the Four Weeks Fit Together

Lined up, the calendar has a clear rhythm. Galt residents get a street party tonight and can be at Las Olas for the Symphonic Winds next Thursday. Central Beach residents have the snowman and the 50,000 lights at A1A and Las Olas on Nov. 19. Lauderdale-by-the-Sea residents can go to both city events before their own town starts on Dec. 2, then settle into Sunday mornings at El Prado Park through spring.

None of these events overlap. The Thursdays fall a week apart, the Lauderdale-by-the-Sea Wednesday falls 13 days after Las Olas, and the farmers market runs on Sundays. Someone living anywhere along the beach could go to every one of them.

At Team Van Zyl, we watch this shoreline year-round, and the stretch you live on shapes your holiday season as much as it shapes your home's value. If you're on the Galt, near Las Olas or up in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea and want to know where your ocean-view home stands going into season, ask us for a home value and we'll walk you through it.