Downtown Glendale's Lights Split in Two, and Most Visitors Never Notice

Coit Burner spends his evenings on a ladder these days. He owns Bears & More, the teddy bear shop on 58th Drive that Valerie Burner and her mother-in-law Linda started in Catlin Court decades ago, and every night after the store closes he strings another string of lights around another tree on the block. Thirty trees done. More than a hundred to go. He is not doing this because the city asked him to. He is doing it because the city stopped.

That single detail tells you more about how Historic Downtown Glendale actually works than any events calendar will. If you live near Catlin Court or Old Towne, you have probably always thought of Glendale Glitters as one continuous wonderland that spills from Murphy Park out through the bungalow-lined streets. For years it was. It is not anymore, and knowing why changes how you should plan your evenings this winter.

Two Traditions, One Name

Glendale Glitters turns 33 this year, and the marketing language around its 2026 season calls it a triumphant return to Murphy Park. That phrase only makes sense once you know where the display had been instead: the Downtown Campus Reinvestment Project, a renovation of City Hall, the amphitheater, and parts of Murphy Park itself, pushed the lights over to the Glendale Civic Center for at least one recent season. Getting the display back onto its original ground is genuinely worth celebrating.

But the return to Murphy Park is not a return to the way things were before 2022. That year, the city's recreation and special events department shifted its Glitters strategy toward year-round programming concentrated specifically in Murphy Park rather than the full spread of streets that used to carry the lights. Jim Burke, who oversees the event for the city, has described the approach as focusing on live music and pedestrian traffic within the park itself. What that meant on the ground in Catlin Court was straightforward: the trees on the merchant blocks stopped getting strung with city-installed lights.

The Historic Downtown Glendale Merchants Association pushed back, and its leadership has been vocal about wanting both the park programming and the district-wide lighting that people associate with three decades of Glitters. When the city didn't restore the Catlin Court lights, the merchants built their own version. It is called Christmas in Catlin Court, it runs Friday and Saturday nights through the season, and it has its own Santa Claus, a fixture who had already been showing up in that same spot for 25 years as of 2022 and is still there now. There was even a dispute over who legally owned the name Glendale Glitters at one point, with a merchant association member registering the trademark himself before the city secured its own registration in 2022. The city retained the name. The two traditions kept running side by side anyway.

None of this is a conflict you need to referee. It is simply the shape of the neighborhood now. If you're heading downtown this winter expecting one seamless walk from Murphy Park through every block of Catlin Court, you'll get half of what you came for unless you know both halves exist.

What's Actually on the Calendar Each Side

Here's how the two traditions break down this season, based on what's confirmed for 2026:

If you only make it to one, Murphy Park gets you the tree, the crowd, and the ceremony. Catlin Court gets you the version that's been continuous for a quarter century, running on the same nights every week rather than a single opening weekend. Plenty of longtime residents do both on the same evening, since the park and the court sit close enough for one loop on foot.

The Rest of the Fall Calendar Doesn't Wait for Lights

The lights are the anchor, but they're not the only reason the sidewalks fill up between now and January. The stretch already started. The 22nd annual Teddy Bear Day ran this past Saturday, September 12, a free event from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. across Catlin Court and Old Towne benefiting the Trauma Teddy Program, which places safety-approved bears with the Glendale Fire Department, Glendale Police Department, area emergency rooms, and the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office for use with children in traumatic situations. Bears & More, the same shop Coit Burner runs, is the founding business behind it.

A few other dates worth putting on the calendar now, before the season fills in around them:

• The Sunday Brunch Art Crawl happens the last Sunday of every month, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., along Glendale Avenue.
• The Holiday Open House is set for Saturday, November 14, 2026, ahead of the Glitters kickoff.
• The Murphy Park lighting ceremony lands November 27 at 5:45 p.m., with the kickoff weekend running through the 28th.

None of this requires advance tickets or a special reason to go. It's just the rhythm the neighborhood already runs on, whether or not you're paying attention to it.

The Habits That Don't Show Up on a Flyer

The events with fixed dates are easy to find. The parts of downtown life that longtime residents actually use tend to be quieter than that.

Catlin Court and Old Towne run a Charm Bracelet Trail that never really ends. Pick up a starter bracelet for five dollars at Memory Lane Trinkets and Treasures, Glendale Flowers & Gifts, or Pink House Boutique, then collect two-dollar charms as you make your way through the district's shops. There's a matching Birthday Passport program that runs the same way, valid during the month of your birthday, with discounts stacked across the district rather than tied to one store.

From October through May, Murphy Park hosts an open-air market every Saturday, food and merchant displays set up under the same trees that carry the Christmas lights a few months later. It's the kind of thing that shows up on nobody's tourism list because it's not built for tourists. It's built for people who already have a reason to be there on a Saturday morning.

That's really the throughline across all of it, the lights split, the Teddy Bear Day, the art crawl, the market. Downtown Glendale didn't end up with two Christmas traditions because anyone planned it that way. It ended up there because the people who own these blocks, Coit Burner with his ladder, Valerie Burner with her Trauma Teddy drive, the merchants association members who fought to keep a Santa Claus in the same spot year after year, kept the district running on their own terms even when the city's approach changed shape. Knowing that is the difference between visiting downtown Glendale and actually living in it.

If you're already the kind of person who tracks this calendar without needing a reason, you already know what it means to live somewhere with this much continuity. That's the case Christina Ramirez and the Valley Leaders team make for buyers looking at Historic Downtown Glendale and the neighborhoods around it, not because of a median price, but because of exactly this kind of detail. If you're curious what your own home near Catlin Court or Old Towne is worth heading into this season, reach out and request your free home valuation.