Beverly's 400th anniversary has no finale. The summer Homecoming crowds left months ago, but the official Beverly 400+ calendar still runs into December. The last event it lists is the Holiday House Tour on Saturday, December 12, and no closing ceremony appears anywhere on it.
So the anniversary winds down through events Beverly already holds every year. This season, several of them have been moved, renamed or rethemed to carry the 400th. The Holiday Parade has an anniversary theme. The Memory Tree lighting moved two weeks earlier to land on parade day. Historic Beverly's house tour is now billed around four centuries of history. If you live here, the last six weeks of the 400th will look a lot like an ordinary Beverly holiday season, with a few dates shifted that are easy to miss.
What is left on the Beverly 400+ calendar
| Date | Event | Where | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sun., Nov. 8, noon to 5 p.m. | Beverly 400+ Educational Powwow at Naumkeag | Endicott College, Post Center field house, 385 Hale St. | Free, registration encouraged |
| Wed., Nov. 11 | Memory Tree ornament orders due | Online or by mail | $20 per ornament |
| Sat., Nov. 21, 2 to 3 p.m. | Ken Turino talk on four centuries of Christmas in America | John Cabot House, 117 Cabot St. | $5 Historic Beverly members, $10 nonmembers |
| Sun., Nov. 29, 1 p.m. | Beverly Holiday Parade | Beverly High School to Beverly Depot | No admission fee listed |
| Sun., Nov. 29, 5 to 6:30 p.m. | Beverly Memory Tree Lighting Ceremony | Odell Veterans Memorial Park, Rantoul St. | No admission fee listed |
| Fri. and Sat., Dec. 11 and 12 | Downtown Beverly Holiday Stroll | Downtown | Not yet posted |
| Sat., Dec. 12, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. | Historic Beverly Holiday House Tour | Seven private homes | $50 |
Only the powwow and the Christmas talk are one-time anniversary programs. Everything else on the list is a recurring tradition that Beverly 400+ has partnered with or taken under its banner for 2026. The calendar starts with the history that predates the city and then moves downtown.
November 8 starts with the name that came before Beverly
The powwow at Endicott College on Sunday, November 8, is the one remaining anniversary event that looks back past 1626 rather than forward from it. Its full title is the Beverly 400+ Educational Powwow at Naumkeag. In its announcement of the event, Endicott explains that Naumkeag is the Indigenous name associated with the area that is now Beverly and Salem. The release also says the region was home to Eastern Algonquian-speaking peoples, including communities associated with the Massachusett and Pawtucket peoples.
The event is presented with Beverly 400+ and the Ohketeau Cultural Center. The program includes traditional Native American dance, drumming, storytelling and crafts, open to all ages. It takes place indoors, in the second-floor field house of the Post Sports Science & Fitness Center at 385 Hale Street. Admission is free. Beverly Patch and the college both say registration is encouraged, and the college's release links to the Eventbrite page.
A 17th-century ban, explained on Cabot Street
Two weeks later the calendar moves downtown, to the street the parade will use eight days after that. On Saturday, November 21, Historic Beverly hosts historian and educator Ken Turino at the John Cabot House, 117 Cabot Street, from 2 to 3 p.m.
The talk is titled "The Spirit of Christmas Past." It follows the holiday from its early, contested history in New England, including its prohibition in the 17th century, to the family customs most people know today. In a year spent marking four centuries, it's the one event that asks how the holiday itself changed over that same span.
Tickets are $5 for Historic Beverly members and $10 for nonmembers. As of late October, the event page showed 40 tickets available in each category.
November 29 is one Sunday with two stops
The Sunday after Thanksgiving carries most of what remains of the anniversary. One name links both events that day.
1 p.m., Herrick Street to the Depot
The Beverly Holiday Parade is a tradition its organizers date to 1947. Their history notes that the 2017 parade marked 70 years of Santa, and that the 2020 parade was canceled during the pandemic. The 2026 theme is "Celebrating 400 Years of Beverly." The grand marshal is Todd Rotondo, a longtime resident, small-business owner and Ward 1 city councilor.
The route isn't new this year. Wicked Local reported in November 2017 that for the 70th parade, the start would move from Cummings Center to Beverly High School and the finish to Beverly Depot. The organizers' participant FAQ describes the current route this way:
- Step off from Beverly High School at 1 p.m.
- Down Herrick Street.
- Left onto Cabot Street, past the City Hall viewing stand.
- Right onto Railroad Avenue at City Hall.
- Finish at the Beverly Depot commuter rail station, 10 Park Street.
For anyone planning a Sunday errand, the FAQ says the route and its access roads close that morning and afternoon. Shower Road access from Route 128 to the Beverly High staging area stays open all day. The rain date is Sunday, December 6, and the committee says it will give at least 24 hours' notice of any change on its website and Facebook page.
5 p.m. at Odell Veterans Memorial Park
About two hours after the parade's scheduled 3 p.m. finish, the Beverly Memory Tree lights up at Odell Veterans Memorial Park on Rantoul Street. Each ornament on the tree honors someone with ties to Beverly who has passed. The ceremony is presented by the Beverly Veterans Council and Beverly Vietnam Veterans as part of Beverly 400+.
The tree began in 2024, and Beverly Main Streets' page lists last year's ceremony on December 13, 2025, at 4:30 p.m., so this year's lighting comes two weeks earlier and shares a day with the parade. The questions contact for the Memory Tree is Todd Rotondo, the same person riding as grand marshal that afternoon.
The deadline that lands first is November 11
The parade and the tree lighting are more than three weeks away, but the deadline that matters most is Wednesday, November 11. To have a name on the Memory Tree, orders must be received by that date.
- Cost: $20 per ornament.
- Veterans: a star ornament for a veteran of the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force or Coast Guard.
- Non-military memorials: a silver ornament.
- How to order: use the QR code on the flyer, or mail the order form and payment to Beverly Vietnam Veterans, 19 Puritan Road, Beverly, MA 01915.
- Where the money goes: profits go to a charity chosen by the Memory Tree Committee.
Mailed orders have to arrive by the deadline, not just be postmarked by it. Anyone mailing a form should send it well ahead of November 11.
December 12 is where the calendar stops
The last item on the Beverly 400+ calendar is also a regular holiday event. Historic Beverly's Annual Holiday House Tour runs Saturday, December 12, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., and costs $50. It opens seven private homes decorated for the season. Historic Beverly's event page ties the tour to the anniversary year:
"Seven homes. Four centuries of history. One very merry Beverly tradition."
Member tickets went on sale October 1 and nonmember tickets on October 15. Historic Beverly says the tour sells out every year. In October the ticket page still showed member and nonmember tickets available. The homes and route haven't been published yet.
That same weekend, Beverly Main Streets brings back the Downtown Beverly Holiday Stroll on December 11 and 12. Vendor and artist details are still to come. That puts a downtown shopping weekend and seven decorated historic houses on the anniversary year's final Saturday.
At The Sullivan Realty Group, we spend a lot of time inside Beverly homes, and the house tour is a reminder of how much each one carries: its history, its upkeep, and the details owners add over the years. If you own one of them and wonder what that adds up to in today's market, Request Your Free Home Valuation and we'll walk you through the local numbers for your home.
