East Sacramento's holidays have no official tree lighting and no city parade. Three nonprofits put the season on. One is a regional food bank, one is a parish school and one is a German club founded in 1854. Between them they fill two dates on the neighborhood calendar. On Thanksgiving morning, tens of thousands of runners loop through the tree-lined streets east of Sac State. On the first weekend of December, a Fabulous Forties home tour and a J Street Christmas market run on the same Saturday and Sunday, a few blocks apart.
If you live here, those two dates decide when you can drive, where you can park and what your weekend looks like. Here is the season in four lines:
- Thursday, Nov. 26: Run to Feed the Hungry. The 10K starts at 8:15 a.m. and the 5K at 9 a.m. on J Street by Sac State.
- Friday, Dec. 4: The Sacred Heart Holiday Home Tour opens, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
- Saturday, Dec. 5: Home tour 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., and the Christkindlmarkt at Turner Hall 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
- Sunday, Dec. 6: Home tour 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and the Christkindlmarkt 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Thanksgiving Morning Belongs to a Food Bank
The Run to Feed the Hungry returns on Thursday, Nov. 26, 2026. The course is a loop that starts on J Street just west of the Sacramento State entrance and runs through East Sacramento's neighborhood streets. The organizers call this year's race the 33rd annual. Sacramento Food Bank & Family Services calls it the organization's largest annual fundraiser.
The growth explains why the race takes over the neighborhood for a whole morning. The food bank's own timeline says the first run, on Thanksgiving 1994, drew 796 participants. By 2023, the race's 30th year, that number was 31,285. KCRA reported that the 2025 race sold out for the first time at 34,050 registrations and was expected to provide 4 million meals. That means the number of people running past East Sac houses on one holiday morning has grown about fortyfold since the first race.
The race-day details that matter most if you live near the course:
- Start times. The 10K starts at 8:15 a.m. and the 5K at 9 a.m.
- The J Street entrance to Sac State stays closed to all vehicles until the race ends.
- Race parking spills onto residential streets. The organizers point participants to the streets between 56th and 58th, from M Street to H Street, on top of the free parking around campus.
- Bike valet is free on the Sac State esplanade, which helps if you're walking or biking over to watch.
- There's a residents' map. For getting in or out of the neighborhood that morning, the organizers publish a Neighborhood Exit Plan and Map.
Last year's street closures don't necessarily match this year's course. The exit map is the version to check before you plan Thanksgiving errands or a drive to the in-laws.
The Weekend Two Fundraisers Share
Eight days after the run, the second date arrives. The Sacred Heart Holiday Home Tour runs Dec. 4 through 6. The Sacramento Turn Verein's Christkindlmarkt runs Dec. 5 and 6. For two days, both are open at once.
| Sacred Heart Holiday Home Tour | Turn Verein Christkindlmarkt | |
|---|---|---|
| Dates | Dec. 4–6, 2026 | Dec. 5–6, 2026 |
| Hours | Dec. 4–5, 10 a.m.–7 p.m.; Dec. 6, 11 a.m.–5 p.m. | Sat. 10 a.m.–6 p.m.; Sun. 11 a.m.–5 p.m. |
| Where | Fabulous Forties homes; will call at Sacred Heart Parish School, 856 39th St. | Turner Hall, 3349 J St. |
| Cost | $40 general, $35 seniors in advance; $5 more after early December | $5 at the door; free for children under 15 |
| Benefits | Sacred Heart Parish School | Multiple Sacramento-area charities |
| Running since | 1973 | 1999 |
The home tour has run every year since 1973. Fabulous Forties homeowners open their houses, and professional designers decorate several of them for the season. Visitors walk through at their own pace. Back at the school, a holiday boutique and café sells gifts from local vendors, lunch and champagne, and local bands play live music. Tickets are on sale now. Parking is free at the school and in the Mercy Hospital lot.
The Christkindlmarkt runs on German Christmas traditions. It offers Christmas music, arts and crafts, ornaments, cookies and cakes, a Nürnberg sausage dinner, Glühwein and an appearance by Saint Nikolaus.
Will call at 39th Street and Turner Hall on J Street are only a few blocks apart. Both events count on the same west-end streets for parking during the same hours on Saturday and Sunday, so the morning slots are the easiest time to do both. The home tour's longer Friday hours, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., let you see the houses without competing with market traffic. That leaves Saturday or Sunday for the Glühwein.
Turner Hall Turns 100 With the Market Inside It
This year's market has an extra reason to stop in. According to the Sacramento Turn Verein's own history, the cornerstone of Turner Hall at 3349 J Street was laid on Oct. 25, 1925, and the hall was dedicated in May 1926. That makes the December market part of the building's centennial year.
The organization is much older than the hall. Its history records its founding in 1854. The Christmas market is relatively new by comparison. The first Sacramento Turn Verein Christkindlmarkt was held Dec. 4–5, 1999, organized by the club's Actives Section, and it has continued every Christmas season since.
Turner Hall also anchored the fall calendar. Its Oktoberfest ran Oct. 9–10, 2026, with a biergarten, live bands and schuhplattler dancers. So one J Street building, run by one club, hosts both Oktoberfest and one of East Sac's two December anchors, and the Christkindlmarkt raises money for Sacramento-area charities the same way the race and the home tour do for their causes.
Where the Season Meets Folsom Boulevard
The two calendar dates are fixed. The streets around them may not stay the same for long. The City of Sacramento's Folsom Boulevard Safety Improvements Project covers Folsom between 47th and 67th Streets, and the city says construction is anticipated to begin in late 2026.
The plan cuts Folsom from two lanes each way to one between 59th and 65th, adds a center turn lane, and creates continuous bike lanes along the corridor. It also includes resurfacing, restriping, traffic signal changes and curb ramp upgrades. The city notes that the continuous bike lanes will require removing on-street parking at a few locations. The bike-lane gaps are mainly between 48th and 53rd Streets, where on-street parking sits today. The project is estimated at $6 million, funded with local and state grant money through the California Natural Resources Agency. "Late 2026" is the city's estimate, not a posted start date. Work may or may not overlap the holiday weekends, so check the project page before you count on a Folsom detour.
The corridor has new places to eat between events. Bocce Ristorante, Joe Pruner's Italian spot built around a market and deli, began regular service Sept. 1 at 4801 Folsom Boulevard, in the former V. Miller Meats space, according to the Sacramento Business Journal. That address is inside the project limits, near the stretch where most of the bike-lane gaps are today. Farther west, Fabulist Pizza opened July 21 at 3269 Folsom Boulevard in the former Café Capricho storefront, serving Roman-style pizza and breads, as Hoodline reported. It sits just south of the J Street blocks where the home tour and the market share the first weekend of December.
So the plan is two dates and a few addresses. Check the exit map before Thanksgiving morning, buy home tour tickets before the price goes up in early December, and plan on the $5 door entry at Turner Hall.
Professional designers dress the Fabulous Forties homes on the tour. If that has you wondering what your own house would look like with the same treatment, or what it would sell for, we can help. If you're thinking about 2027, the team at Portfolio Real Estate handles staging and renovation coordination and can tell you where your East Sacramento home stands today. Get a free home valuation and personalized plan.
