Columbia's Lamplight Tour Leaves the Museum Every 15 Minutes. Here's How to Plan December Around It.

This year's play is set in Columbia in the winter of 1858. The diggings have played out, the miners are starving, and the townspeople, in the words of Friends of Columbia State Historic Park, "had hearts of stone." A handful of miners go door to door looking for the makings of Stone Soup. Lantern-carrying guides lead the audience through the dark streets behind them, and at the end everyone tastes the soup and goes home with a souvenir mug.

That's the 41st annual Lamplight Tour, on Friday and Saturday, Dec. 4 and 5, 2026. Most of Columbia's holiday calendar works on a show-up-when-you-like basis. The Lamplight Tour doesn't. It's the only December event on Main Street that needs a ticket, and it leaves on a schedule, one small group at a time. The departure you book shapes your whole evening, and it's the one part of the month you have to settle ahead of time.

Fifteen departures, two nights

The Friends run six tours on Friday, starting at 6:30 p.m., and nine on Saturday, starting at 5:30 p.m., with a new group leaving every 15 minutes. Their booking calendar on Bookeo shows each departure as its own slot:

The tour lasts 1 hour and 30 minutes. The booking page asks you to check in at the Columbia Museum 15 minutes before your start time. That makes each slot about a two-hour commitment from check-in to soup. Book Saturday's first 5:30 p.m. tour and you'll be back at the car around 7 o'clock. Book Friday's last 7:45 p.m. tour and you'll finish closer to 9:15.

Those two nights don't fill the same way. Saturday has more tours and starts an hour earlier, which suits families with kids and anyone driving up the hill afterward. Friday's tours all leave between 6:30 and 7:45, so a Friday booking means a later night either way. In early November, Saturday's 6:30 p.m. departure already showed as full on the booking calendar, while the other slots on both nights still had space. The 2025 event listing on myMotherLode said the tours sell out every year. Once you've picked a slot, book it.

Who the ticket is for

The Friends' 2026 listing and booking calendar price tickets at $30 per person for ages 16 and older and $10 for children 10 through 15. The Friends don't recommend the tour for children under 10. That age line matters more than it might sound. Ninety minutes on foot through a historic town after dark is a long stretch for a young child, and if your December guests include grandkids, it decides who goes on the tour and who stays home.

For a household of two adults and a 12-year-old, that's $70 for the evening. Your group also has its own place in line. Each departure has a fixed number of spots, so a family of five will have an easier time on Saturday, with nine slots to choose from, than squeezing into a Friday slot that's almost gone.

The play changes, the format stays

Stone Soup is this year's story. In 2018 it was "A Christmas Calamity, or Aunt Martha's Travelling Fruitcake." Last December's tour, on Dec. 5 and 6, 2025, was "A Miners' Christmas Carol," performed by docents and volunteers in period costume.

California State Parks describes the format as a walking play that moves through Columbia at night. Guests follow kerosene lanterns from one vignette to the next, meeting townsfolk as they tell stories "whether real, exaggerated, or imagined," and the evening ends with music, dance and refreshments. So if you went last year, you haven't seen this one.

The ticket price also funds the park's programs. The Friends have described Lamplight as a fundraiser for their preservation and education work, and the 2018 listing said proceeds support the group's interpretive and educational programs. The same nonprofit also runs the park's free Halloween afternoon and, two weeks after Lamplight, Miners Christmas.

Everything else on the calendar is free, and you just show up

Once your Lamplight slot is booked, the rest of Columbia's December takes no planning beyond showing up. Every other event below is free to watch and needs no reservation:

1. Sunday, Dec. 13, 11 a.m.: All Equestrian Parade on Main Street. This is a judged parade, open to riders, drivers and mounted groups of all ages, and entrants can earn points toward the California State Horsemen's Association Parade High Point Program. Watching is free, and riders pay a $25 entry fee. Everyone is encouraged to bring an unwrapped toy for the toy drive benefiting ATTCAA's Housing Families Program.
2. Sunday, Dec. 13, 5:30 p.m.: Las Posadas Nativity Procession on Main Street. Columbia has staged its own Las Posadas, with an 1850s flavor, every December since 1983. The cast includes Mary and Joseph with their donkey, the three Wise Men, a tax collector, an innkeeper, and miners, musicians and other costumed townspeople. Luminaries line the route, Main Street is decorated for Christmas, and onlookers hold candles and sing carols. The Columbia Chamber of Commerce coordinates it.
3. Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 19–20, noon to 3 p.m.: Miners Christmas. This free, family-friendly afternoon shows what Christmas might have looked like in a Gold Rush town in the 1850s. Expect stories from old-timer miners, chestnuts roasted over an open fire, old-fashioned crafts, hot cider and coffee in the decorated historic buildings, and possibly Father Christmas. Some activities may be canceled in wet weather.

Dec. 13 is the day that takes some thought. Horses come down Main Street at 11 a.m., and the procession starts at 5:30 p.m., more than six hours later. Most households will pick one. If you want the whole day, plan something for the afternoon in between. The City Hotel and the Bella Union, the two restaurants on Main Street, are now run by the same operators, Christina and Nate Lint, as the Union Democrat reported earlier this year. Call ahead for their holiday hours.

Putting the month together

Here's how the rest of the month works around your Lamplight booking:

• If you're hosting guests the first weekend of December, book a Saturday Lamplight departure and plan dinner before or after it. The 5:30 p.m. tour puts you at the museum by 5:15 and done by about 7.
• If your household includes children under 10, skip the Lamplight Tour and spend Dec. 13 and Miners Christmas on Main Street. Both are free, both are in daylight or early evening, and neither needs a ticket.
• If you only want one December evening in town, pick between Lamplight on Dec. 4 or 5 and Las Posadas on Dec. 13. One is a ticketed play that runs on a fixed schedule. The other is a free candlelit procession down Main Street that anyone can join.
• If the weather turns on Dec. 19 or 20, plan on a shorter Miners Christmas. Visit Tuolumne notes that some activities may be canceled when it's wet.

Lamplight tickets are sold through the Friends' events page, which links to the departure-by-departure calendar on Bookeo. The State Parks special events page lists the Dec. 13 parade and procession along with contacts for each. From publish day, the first Lamplight group heads out from the museum in a little over three weeks, and once a departure fills, it's closed.

We grew up with Columbia in December, and we're happy to help you decide between a Friday and a Saturday slot or fit the Dec. 13 parade and procession into one Sunday. If out-of-town family is visiting and you want ideas for their whole weekend, Leeann Lupo Properties can help with that too. Talk with Leeann, your Hometown Specialist.