Downtown Monument's Holiday Season Starts Saturday at 18 Trick-or-Treat Stops

Downtown Monument's holiday season runs on one route for five weeks. It starts Saturday afternoon on Second Street with candy at shop doors and ends Dec. 5 with Santa lighting the trees in Limbach Park. In between, the same small group of independent shops hosts nearly every weekend. Learn the map once this Saturday and you can use it through the first week of December. This year the route has a few new doors.

Saturday's trick-or-treat map is the season's map

The Downtown Monument Safe Trick or Treat is this Saturday, Oct. 31. It starts at 4 p.m. around Second Street and Limbach Park, and the Tri-Lakes Chamber lists it running until 6 p.m. It's free, it's open to all ages, and merchants hand out treats at their own doors. According to The Monument Independent's event listing, the downtown business association's map has 18 stops. Those include Lolley's Ice Cream, Covered Treasures Bookstore, Faery Grove, Ruby Rae's Vintage Tea House, The Little Blue Barn, the Monument Fire Department and the Monument Police.

Parking is in three marked spots:

1. The Lewis-Palmer School District 38 administration building, 46 N. Jefferson St.
2. Limbach Park, 151 Front St.
3. St. Peter Catholic Church, 55 N. Jefferson St.

Those three lots and those 18 stops are worth keeping in mind after Halloween. Each event on the downtown calendar through early December happens on these same blocks, and most of them are run by the businesses on that map.

Two new doors since summer

Families who haven't walked Front Street since spring will find at least one stop they don't know yet. Ruby Rae's Vintage Tea House opened Sept. 29 in Suite 8 at 251 Front Street. It serves British-style afternoon tea in three sizes by reservation. Walk-ins can sit down for a pot of tea or a cream tea, or browse the teas, china and gifts, and some of the china is for sale. The Monument Independent reports hours of 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturdays and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sundays.

Owner Melissa Holtzlander retired from the Air Force in 2023, and her last assignment was Peterson Space Force Base. She runs the tea house with her husband, Gerald, and their children. The Monument Independent's profile of Ruby Rae's says the room is furnished with tea towels she collected while traveling the world, plus china and antique furniture she gathered over the past decade. She told the paper:

"After 20 years of service, being able to build this dream alongside my husband and children means everything to me."

The address has a neighbor worth knowing. The Gazette listed The Love Shop at No. 13 in the same building, 251 Front St., in its March coverage of the No Boys Allowed tour. That's two downtown stops behind a single street number.

A block over, The Flourish Collective opened at 267 Washington Street. It's a group of independent practitioners in women's and family care. It soft-opened July 16 and has been fully open since Aug. 1, according to The Monument Independent. The Chamber's downtown directory also lists Bair Brew Coffee as "Coming soon" at 225 Front Street, Unit 100. Until the shop announces a date, treat it as a future stop.

November belongs to the shops

After Halloween, the same merchants change their windows and keep going. The Chamber lists the Downtown Monument Holiday Open House for the first Friday and Saturday in November. Downtown businesses open the holiday season with food, special events and sales. On the 2026 calendar that's Friday, Nov. 6, and Saturday, Nov. 7. The Chamber's listing is a recurring one, though, so check hours with your favorite shops before you head out.

The shops that took part in the Gazette's spring tour give a good idea of who's downtown. Along with The Love Shop, the list included Bella Art & Frame, Cookie Jar, Corina's Salon & Boutique, Covered Treasures Bookstore, Faery Grove Facial Aesthetics, Jenny Lee Designers, Lolley's Ice Cream, Super Junk Vintage, The Cottage and The Monument Mercantile. The Chamber's directory adds food and drink stops: Black Forest Foods, Colorado Pinball Pub and Trails End Taproom.

Two weeks later comes the Tri-Lakes Women's Club Holiday Home Tour on Friday, Nov. 20, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., as listed in Our Community News' October calendar. OCN reminds readers that dates and times can change after publication, so confirm with the organizers.

Then comes the day the Chamber treats as the big one. Small Business Saturday falls on Nov. 28, the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Downtown businesses run holiday events and offers from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The Chamber's downtown page puts it plainly: "This is the most important shopping day of the year for our local economy."

The route, date by date

Dec. 5 brings the whole route together

The first Saturday in December is the only day the merchants and the Town of Monument share the calendar. Small Town Christmas runs downtown from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., with visits from Santa, Mrs. Claus and their reindeer, plus hayrides, crafts and other traditional Christmas activities.

Monument's Annual Tree Lighting is the same day, Saturday, Dec. 5, at Limbach Park. The Chamber describes activities, live entertainment and food trucks before Santa arrives to light the trees. Guests are encouraged to bring non-perishable food for Tri-Lakes Cares and local families in need. The Town of Monument's tree lighting page is the place to check for the evening schedule.

Limbach Park, at 151 Front St., is also one of the three Halloween parking spots. The season ends in the same park where many families will have parked on Oct. 31.

The lot at Second and Adams

A short way down Second Street, a new piece of downtown is being built. The Heart of Monument Play Park broke ground Aug. 10 at Second and Adams Streets. It's a partnership among the Town of Monument, Monument Community Presbyterian Church and the Monument Hill Kiwanis Club, and it's designed to be universally accessible. KOAA described it as being for everyone "from a 96-year-old father-in-law to a 2-year-old granddaughter."

The project's website says Phase One is fully funded and that organizers are still raising money for Phase Two. When construction contracts were approved in July, The Gazette reported that officials hoped to hold a Phase One ribbon-cutting before the end of the year. No opening date has been announced yet. For now, families trick-or-treating on Second Street this Saturday will walk past a construction site. If the year-end goal holds, it could be a finished park by the time of the tree lighting or soon after.

Our team at Kirkpatrick Associates lives and works in the Tri-Lakes area, and we like seeing new doors open on Front Street. If you have a downtown Monument stop we should know about, or an event to add to this calendar, send it our way and we'll pass it along.