The People4Parks Windsor Parks & Recreation Foundation scheduled the adoption window for the 2026 Charlie Brown Christmas Tree Grove to close on Sunday, October 25. In mid-October its Eventbrite listing read "Few tickets left," with a starting price of $97.88 and no refunds. Any barrel that was going to get a family's lights this year had to be claimed between mid-September and the weekend before Halloween.
That timing explains the grove. The more than 200 live trees that fill the Windsor Town Green in December are a planned project, and the people who build it live here. Adoption is open only to Windsor residents and to Windsor businesses with a local storefront. The trees are decorated by local families, classrooms, service groups and businesses. Most of the grove's look is settled by a set of instructions written for a wet Sonoma County December.
The Calendar That Runs Ahead of the Season
The grove's year begins in late summer. Here is the 2026 sequence, taken from the People4Parks Windsor grove page and the adoption listing:
- September 1: deadline for sponsors to appear in early marketing.
- September 15 at 9 a.m.: adoptions open to residents and storefront businesses.
- October 25: the adoption window closes.
- Within two weeks of decorating day: adoptees get a map and tree list by email.
- Sunday, November 29, at noon: community decorating begins. Every tree has to be finished by 8 p.m. on Wednesday, December 2. An undecorated tree after that goes to another group.
- January 1 at 8 p.m.: closing night. Trees stay decorated until then.
- Friday, January 8, at 9 p.m.: the deadline to take decorations down.
That's more than four months of logistics for one month of display. The grove's areas have names too: Bosque, McClelland East, McClelland West, South Diagonal, North Diagonal and Along the Arbor. Each tree is numbered, and adoptees find theirs by number on the map and by the name on its label. If you've ever walked from the McClelland Drive side toward the arbor and felt the grove change character, that's because it's laid out in sections.
Why Every Tree Is Lit From the Bottom Up
The 2026 decorating instructions make one assumption plainly: "We expect rain and wind during December." Almost every rule follows from that, and so does most of what you see on an evening walk.
| The rule for adoptees | What it means on the Green |
|---|---|
| Outdoor-rated LED lights only, no solar transformers. Non-LED trees get unplugged and tagged. | The whole grove runs on LEDs, so the light is even from barrel to barrel. |
| Plug only into the socket attached to your barrel, and don't lay lights in the barrel top, which fills with water when it rains and shorts out the lights. | Each tree has its own power, and the barrel tops stay clear. |
| No homemade electric or battery-powered toppers or ornaments. | Only plug-in light strings, so no battery-operated pieces. |
| String lights from the bottom of the tree up, and tape every connection and open cord end with black electrical tape. | The lights stay dry, and you won't see tangles of cord on the trunk. |
| Weatherproof decorations, attached securely. No plastic tie wraps or excessive wire. No ornaments made of food, dough or biscuits, and nothing held with Elmer's Glue or contact cement. | The ornaments still look like ornaments after the first storm. |
| Don't walk between the barrels or over the cords. | The aisles are for walking, and the space between trees is off-limits. |
The rules also cover the end of the season. A tree undecorated before closing night, or left decorated for volunteers to clean up, "will be tagged for future eligibility." That one sentence keeps the grove full through New Year's. Adopting a tree is a promise to keep it going for five weeks, and it affects whether you get one next year.
Tree size isn't up to chance either. Sponsors receive the grove's tallest trees, at 5.5 to 6 feet. When one tree stands a little taller than its neighbors, you're most likely looking at a sponsor's tree.
Where the Money Has Come From
The nightly snowfalls at 5:30 and 7:30 p.m. are the grove's signature, and People4Parks says it keeps improving the lighting displays.
In 2015, The Press Democrat reported that the event was funded by tree sales at $50 each and sponsorships ranging from $500 to $5,000. Cindy Bagley, then Windsor's recreation program supervisor, said tree revenue paid the event's direct costs. Sponsorships covered the larger costs of lighting and music, along with People4Parks' broader work maintaining Windsor parks, facilities and programs. The 2026 adoption listing starts at $97.88 on Eventbrite, close to double the 2015 price per tree.
This year's sponsors get promotion along with their trees. People4Parks is printing postcards with sponsor logos on the back and the schedule on the front, and running ads in Family Life Magazine and the Sonoma County Gazette. Larger sponsors get their logos on two banners hung at the event in December and their names in radio spots on four stations, two of them Latinx stations.
How the Grove Stayed a Windsor Project
The grove's resident-only, volunteer-run character goes back to a handoff that could easily have gone another way. According to the same 2015 Press Democrat report, two local volunteers, one of them Michael Powell of Powell's Sweet Shoppe, had coordinated the grove on the Town Green since 2009. In January 2015 they announced they could no longer run it. In March, People4Parks agreed to take it over with their support. Bagley called it "a perfect partnership."
The name needed approval too. Craig Schulz, son of "Peanuts" cartoonist Charles Schulz, met with People4Parks and approved the nonprofit's continued use of Charlie Brown's name. He told the paper:
"I am glad to see this wonderful tradition continue on the Windsor Town Green, as it brings so much joy to the season."
Even then, the grove reached well beyond town. The same article said the display of 200 trees had drawn visitors from the Bay Area. Robert Ramirez, Windsor's economic development manager, said downtown merchants reported a significant increase in sales during the monthlong celebration. The scale held. A December 2024 report carried by the Sonoma County Gazette counted 225 half wine barrels on the Green, holding 224 trees and one menorah, on display around the clock. The 2026 listing calls this the grove's 18th year. It's grown into a regional draw, and Windsor residents still decorate it.
If Your Name Isn't on a Barrel This Year
Missing the October 25 deadline means you won't hang your own lights this December. You can still see the whole grove, and the timing works well with other things happening on the Green.
The Windsor Farmers Market runs Sundays from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at 701 McClelland Drive, through the first Sunday in December. Its 2026 calendar includes Thanksgiving tastings on November 22 and the season finale on December 6. The finale falls four days after the grove's decorating deadline, so the market's last Sunday of the year is also the first Sunday with every tree finished. You can do your last market shopping of the season and walk the grove in daylight the same morning, then come back after dark for the 5:30 snowfall.
There's also the work after the season ends. In 2024, People4Parks asked for volunteers to help take the trees down on January 4. It hasn't posted a 2026 take-down date yet, so check its grove page as January gets closer. And if you want a barrel next fall, plan around this year's dates: sponsor marketing closed September 1 and adoptions opened September 15 at 9 a.m.
The grove is one of my favorite examples of Windsor people building something together on the Town Green each year. If you'd like to talk about life near the Green, or anywhere else in Windsor and Sonoma County, Kellie Larson is glad to share what we know about the town. Contact Us whenever you're ready.
