Your Christmas Tree Has a Job at Lake Andrea on Jan. 6

Pleasant Prairie's holiday season starts and ends at Lake Andrea. It opens with a 5K at the Lake Andrea Beach Pavilion on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. It closes seven weeks later with a bonfire at Wruck Beach Pavilion on the same shoreline. The village builds that bonfire out of residents' own holiday trees. The tree you put up this month is part of the season's last event, and the drop-off window opens on Dec. 26, the same day the Holiday Lights Tour ends.

Here is the season in order, with that handoff in mind.

Thanksgiving weekend opens at the lake

The season's first event is nine days after this post goes up. Run with the Turkeys 5K starts at 9 a.m. on Saturday, Nov. 21, and starts and finishes at the Lake Andrea Beach Pavilion. Online registration is $30, and every runner gets an event shirt and finisher medal. Packet pickup and day-of registration run from 8 to 8:45 a.m. in the Wruck Pavilion building. The race isn't timed, and registrations can't be canceled.

The next morning, RecPlex moves the competition indoors. The Indoor Turkey Triathlon on Sunday, Nov. 22, at 9900 Terwall Terrace is built around fixed time blocks, not set distances:

1. A 10-minute swim in the Aqua Arena
2. A 10-minute transition
3. A 20-minute ride on a spin bike
4. A 5-minute transition
5. A 15-minute treadmill run

That's 60 minutes from your first stroke to your last stride. Scoring gives equal weight to all three sports. Each athlete's final score is the sum of how they did against the winner in each of the three sports, so a race takes all three legs.

The logistics are strict. The first wave goes off at 7:30 a.m. sharp, and the rest follow every 25 minutes. Wave start times are posted at the RecPlex Fitness Center and on the registration page the Thursday before the race. Check-in opens at 7 a.m., and athletes must check in 30 minutes before their wave. The building doesn't open to racers before 6:55 a.m. Registration is $40, and online registration closes at noon on Wednesday, Nov. 18. Fees aren't refundable or transferable. Every finisher gets a medal, a T-shirt and a goodie bag. RecPlex says November swims will likely be in 50-meter lanes, depending on any swim meets that day.

If you want both events, the 5K is Saturday at the lake and the triathlon is Sunday morning across the RecPlex campus.

December happens on the streets and at the rink

After Thanksgiving, the season leaves the lakefront for a few weeks. The three December events below each draw on a different part of the village.

Shop with a Cop, Sunday, Dec. 13. The Visit Pleasant Prairie listing describes an event that pairs children from families who may need help celebrating with police officers or firefighters. Together they pick out gifts for the children's families. It's based at the Pleasant Prairie Police and Fire & Rescue Departments, 10111 39th Avenue. You can drop off or mail donations to the Pleasant Prairie Professional Police Association Shop with a Cop at that address, and the listing says all donations go directly to the event.

The 5th Annual Holiday Lights Tour, through Saturday, Dec. 26. This is a drive-by tour. Visit Pleasant Prairie puts a curated list of standout decorated homes on an official tour map, and visitors vote in four categories:

• Favorite Overall Display
• Best Classic/Vintage Display
• Most Creative Theme Display
• Best Interactive Display

The tour listing also promises returning hospitality stops and photo spots along the route. The map and voting details live at visitpleasantprairie.com/holiday-lights-tour. The tour runs every night of its schedule, including Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and ends on Saturday, Dec. 26.

Winter Extravaganza, Dec. 18 and 19. The RecPlex Ice Arena's 2026 Winter Extravaganza has two shows, on Friday, Dec. 18, at 6 p.m. and Saturday, Dec. 19, at 4 p.m. The arena lists spectator tickets at $14 for online sales and $17 for in-person sales, and its page directs buyers to purchase through its online ticket link.

The lights tour ending on Dec. 26 matters for the rest of the season. That's the day the village starts taking trees back.

Dec. 26 is the handoff

The Village of Pleasant Prairie's 2026 calendar lists free holiday tree drop-off sites that operate from Dec. 26 through Jan. 31. They're for village residents only, and they take trees and nothing else.

Before you drop off a tree, the village asks you to remove wreaths, garlands, lights, ornaments, other metal objects, tree bags, stands and nails. Then place the tree inside the fenced area. The calendar says this keeps costs down for every resident by preventing expensive damage to equipment. A missed hook or a leftover strand of lights matters more here than at the curb.

The preferred site at Prairie Springs Park ties into the bonfire. Visit Pleasant Prairie's Twelfth Night event guide asks residents who want to contribute to bring "a bare, dried holiday tree" to the designated area along the west side of Park Drive by Lake Andrea Beach. That's the same spot the village calendar lists first.

That leaves 11 days between the drop-off opening on Dec. 26 and the bonfire on Jan. 6. If you want your tree in the pile, take it to Lake Andrea during that stretch. You can use the other five sites through Jan. 31, but Lake Andrea is the one the bonfire guide names.

Jan. 6 at Wruck Beach Pavilion

The season ends on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2027, at the Wruck Beach Pavilion on Lake Andrea, 9999 Park Drive. According to the Visit Pleasant Prairie event listing, doors open at 5:30 p.m. and the bonfire lights at 6 p.m. There's caroling, and people roast marshmallows for s'mores over individual campfires on the beach. It's free.

The date comes from an old English custom. Visit Pleasant Prairie's event guide explains that in English tradition:

"it is unlucky to leave Christmas decorations hanging after the Twelve Days of Christmas or Twelfth Night (January 6th)."

According to the same guide, Pleasant Prairie adopted its own version of the tradition in the 1980s. The village burned the community's Christmas trees in a huge bonfire, with caroling and shared holiday leftovers. That ran for 13 years, and the village brought it back in 2020 with plans to make it annual again.

The guide lists two ways to take part and encourages doing both. The first is bringing a tree. The second is coming to the bonfire, where local businesses donate the hot chocolate, coffee and treats. At the event you can enter a raffle to become that year's official Cheermiester. The winner gets a magic wand and, with guidance from the fire department, lights the pile of trees. There's a short welcome at 6 p.m., and the trees start burning shortly after.

That means the season's last event depends on the decorations residents put up in December. A tree that stands in a front window during the lights tour can go to Lake Andrea once the tour ends, and burn on Jan. 6 on the same lakeshore where the 5K started in November.

Planning around the dates

A few dates are worth putting on your calendar now, since none of them repeat until next year:

• Wednesday, Nov. 18, at noon: Online registration for the Indoor Turkey Triathlon closes.
• Saturday, Nov. 21, at 8 a.m.: Day-of registration and packet pickup open for the 5K in the Wruck Pavilion building.
• Before Friday, Dec. 18: Buy Winter Extravaganza tickets through the RecPlex Ice Arena's online link.
• Saturday, Dec. 26: The lights tour ends and the tree drop-off sites open.
• Wednesday, Jan. 6: Doors open at Wruck Beach Pavilion at 5:30 p.m., half an hour before the 6 p.m. bonfire.

If your lights are going up this month and you're also wondering what your home might be worth by spring, the Renee O'Brien Group can give you a number to have in mind before the season ends. Start with a quick look. Get an Instant Home Valuation.