From now until the week before Christmas, most of Allentown's holiday calendar is at the west end of the neighborhood. Kleinhans Music Hall, at 3 Symphony Circle, has a dozen dates booked between November 19 and December 20. They run from a literary evening to a film score played live to four performances of Holiday Pops. Allen Street gets one night with "holiday" in its name on the Allentown Association calendar, and that night is Friday, December 4.
Nearly everything is ticketed, indoors and on a fixed schedule. The free, walk-up part happens on one Friday evening. Which weekend you protect depends on which of those you're after.
Before Thanksgiving, the Hall Warms Up With Two Nights That Aren't Concerts
The first two Kleinhans dates after mid-November aren't holiday shows. They're still worth a look, because they're community evenings at the neighborhood's own concert hall.
- Thursday, November 19, 7:30 p.m. Just Buffalo Literary Center's BABEL series brings Kaveh Akbar to Kleinhans Music Hall. Akbar is the poet and novelist whose debut novel, Martyr!, became a New York Times bestseller. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.
- Friday, November 20, 6 p.m. Groundwork Market Garden and Fare Share WNY host "Food For All: A 10-Year Celebration & Barnraiser" in Kleinhans's Mary Seaton Room. The evening has food from local chefs and restaurants, live music, raffles and a silent auction. Proceeds go toward a new barn at Groundwork Market Garden for farm markets, CSA pickups and community events.
Thanksgiving weekend brings the hall's first holiday program. The Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra plays Home Alone Film in Concert on Saturday, November 28 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, November 29 at 2:30 p.m. If you're hosting out-of-town family that weekend, it's a holiday outing on the neighborhood's own edge.
Theatre of Youth's holiday show opens the weekend before. The Pigeon Gets a Big Time Holiday Extravaganza is a new musical based on Mo Willems's books and characters, with script and lyrics by Willems and Adam Tobin. It runs for the public from November 21 through December 19. It's recommended for ages 3 and up and runs 60 minutes, plus a 10-minute talk-back after every performance. That's a sensible length for the youngest audience members.
December 4 Is the Night the Street Itself Is Booked
The Allentown Association lists its Horse & Carriage Holiday Celebration for Friday, December 4, from 6 to 8 p.m. It's the last item on the Association's 2026 calendar, the one Buffalo Rising published in March. That list started with April's spring clean-up and ran through the Allen West Art Festival in June, Spooky Porches in October and the Association's annual meeting in November.
The date matters because December 4 is also a First Friday. Visit Buffalo describes the Allentown First Friday Gallery Walk as running every first Friday of the month, year-round, on Allen Street between Main Street and Delaware Avenue. It has gallery openings, and local retail and gift shops stay open until 9 p.m. The Association gives the walk's monthly hours as 6 to 9 p.m. So the carriage celebration fills the first two hours of a gallery walk that keeps going for a third.
A picture of what the night has looked like comes from Buffalo Rising's preview of the 2023 edition, which set the celebration along Park and Allen Streets:
"The holiday festivities will include hot cocoa from Owl Eyes – a relatively new café at 162 Allen Street – caroling by Broadway to Buffalo, horse drawn carriage rides, and a very special visit with Santa."
The same preview said shops, galleries and restaurants were taking part. It also described a drive for new hats, gloves and socks for local organizations to distribute, and noted that many bars and restaurants stayed open well past 8 p.m. That's how the 2023 edition ran. The Association's 2026 page confirms the date and hours, so check it for this year's details as the night gets closer.
The Weekend After the Carriages Is the Fullest of the Season
December 4 starts the most crowded stretch of Allentown's holiday calendar. Over three days, the street event, a family show and a jazz matinee all fall within walking distance of one another.
| Day | Time | What | Where |
|---|---|---|---|
| Friday, Dec. 4 | 6 to 8 p.m. | Horse & Carriage Holiday Celebration | Allentown Association event |
| Friday, Dec. 4 | 6 to 9 p.m. | First Friday Gallery Walk | Allen Street, Main to Delaware |
| Sunday, Dec. 6 | 10 a.m. | Sensory-friendly Pigeon performance | Theatre of Youth |
| Sunday, Dec. 6 | 2 p.m. | Swinging in the Holidays | Mary Seaton Room, Kleinhans |
The Sunday morning show is Theatre of Youth's one sensory-friendly performance of the run, so families who need that format have a single date to plan around.
The afternoon belongs to Swinging in the Holidays, which Kleinhans Music Hall and JazzBuffalo present with pianist and vocalist Champian Fulton and Grammy Award-winning vocalist Carmen Bradford. Kleinhans calls it the 2nd Annual Jazz at Kleinhans Christmas Celebration. The program reworks swing-era holiday standards associated with Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Nat "King" Cole and Ella Fitzgerald. The show has moved to 2 p.m., so check the time on any tickets bought before the change.
Mid-December Belongs to the Orchestra
Once the street celebration is over, the calendar moves back to Symphony Circle for the rest of the season. Between December 11 and December 20, the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra has eight performances at Kleinhans across three programs.
- JoAnn's Classical Christmas: Friday, December 11 at 10:30 a.m. and Saturday, December 12 at 7:30 p.m.
- Jingle Bell Jam: Sunday, December 13, with performances at noon and 4 p.m.
- Holiday Pops: Thursday, December 17 and Friday, December 18 at 10:30 a.m., Saturday, December 19 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, December 20 at 2:30 p.m.
Most of the eight are weekday mornings or weekend matinees. Only Saturday, December 12 and Saturday, December 19 have evening curtains. That leaves the other evenings that week open for dinner on Allen Street.
Handel's Messiah isn't on this list. The BPO's December calendar puts its two Messiah performances at Our Lady of Victory Basilica and St. Joseph University Parish this year, so that tradition will be somewhere other than Symphony Circle.
Holiday Pops ends on December 20, and Theatre of Youth's Pigeon run ends the day before, on December 19. Both runs close on the same weekend.
What Holds Allen Street Between the Big Dates
On the other three weekends, Allen Street's anchor is the monthly First Friday, which Visit Buffalo lists as year-round. The neighborhood's arts presence also got bigger on the street itself this year. In March, Buffalo Rising reported that Rivalry Projects LLC had closed on 249 Allen Street, a building that had sat vacant for a long time. The buyers own Rivalry Projects, a commercial art gallery and arts production space at 106 College Street, and the two properties are contiguous.
Put together, the season comes down to a few dates. Thanksgiving weekend belongs to Home Alone at Kleinhans. December 4 is the one evening Allen Street becomes the venue. December 6 has the sensory-friendly Pigeon in the morning and swing standards in the afternoon. The BPO's eight performances close out the run between December 11 and 20.
Holiday evenings like December 4 are a big part of what people value about owning a home within walking distance of Allen Street, and I factor that kind of street-level detail into every pricing conversation. If you're thinking about what your Allentown home is worth heading into 2027, Susan Lenahan can give you a free home valuation and a neighborhood strategy built around the blocks you know.
