Encinitas Celebrates the Holidays Along Three Stretches of the 101. This Year, Leucadia's Is the One to Watch.

On the Sunday before Thanksgiving, six blocks of South Coast Highway 101 close to traffic for the Encinitas Holiday Street Fair. More than 450 vendors set up, along with four entertainment stages, children's rides, a bike valet and a beer garden. Two weeks later the city's Holiday Parade runs down the same road from D Street to J Street. Cardiff fills the weekends between with a poster promotion, a discount passport and a makers' market on Aberdeen Drive.

A few miles north, the 101 through Leucadia is still a work zone. Crews are finishing a construction phase that started in March 2024. Leucadia 101's 20th annual LeucadiART Walk took place back on August 30, and its standing Sunday farmers market keeps running through the season. Leucadia's season will come down to whoever stops in at its shops, cafes and bars on an ordinary day.

Leucadia is still reopening the highway that the other two districts close

The Leucadia Streetscape project covers 2.5 miles of North Coast Highway 101. It broke ground in January 2021, and The Coast News puts the total cost at more than $65 million. The current phase, Segment C, runs from Jupiter Street to La Costa Avenue and carries an estimated $32 million price tag. It was first scheduled to finish by summer 2025. The City Council then added a new storm drain system to reduce flooding along the corridor, which pushed the timeline back about a year and a half.

The City of Encinitas project page, updated September 17, puts completion in "late Fall 2026." That is a projection, not a finish date. The update reports the following:

• All of the 60-inch, 66-inch and 36-inch underground storm drain pipe is in.
• Crews are still working on cleanout boxes, storm drain laterals and inlets, water service laterals and water main between Jupiter Street and La Costa Avenue.
• South of La Costa Avenue, on the west side of the highway, crews are building new curb, gutter, sidewalk, a bus pad, a bus shelter pad and driveways.
• Drivers should expect intermittent lane shifts, noise, dust, lighting and large construction vehicles. Access to driveways and businesses will be maintained.

"Please support our local Leucadia businesses during construction."

Why that request matters this season

In July, The Coast News reported on how the construction was affecting businesses along the corridor. Stacy Reddell, executive director of the Leucadia 101 MainStreet Association, told the paper that sales had fallen an average of 25% to 40% over the previous year among the 20 businesses she surveyed. That is a July figure and does not reflect the fall.

The same article named Leucadia Cyclery, The Leucadian Bar, Leucadia Donut Shoppe, Sip-N-Sea, Surfhouse Hotel and Coffee Coffee among the businesses that had raised concerns about access, safety or revenue. Leucadia Donut Shoppe's owner told the paper that northbound customers often had to drive on to La Costa Avenue and make a U-turn to reach the shop. Reddell said the lack of a closer U-turn had affected businesses up and down the corridor.

That access problem shapes how the holidays play out on the north end. The street fair and the parade work because a stretch of the 101 can close cleanly and fill with people. Leucadia's stretch spent the summer and fall half-built, with lane shifts and long detours. Until the paving and sidewalks are done, the season there runs on individual errands to individual storefronts.

The dated calendar, from the publish date through the first week of December

Everything below is still ahead as of Thursday, October 22.

Encinitas 101's general fair page gives the Holiday Street Fair a 5 p.m. close. The 2026 event listing says 4 p.m., so plan around the earlier time.

Three weekends carry most of the season

The weekend before Thanksgiving brings the biggest crowd of the year to downtown. The Holiday Street Fair takes over South Coast Highway 101 on Sunday, November 22. Two days earlier, Lightscape opens for its fifth year at the San Diego Botanic Garden. The one-mile trail winds through the Garden's 37 acres. New installations this year include Airquarium, a shoal of lit fish that appear to leap from the Bamboo Pond, and Haze Arches, a row of glowing arches wrapped in haze. Also new are Moon and Stars, Spark Ballet's lanterns hung from the trees, and Flock, a trail of glowing birds. The Winter Cathedral light tunnel and the field of illuminated Bluebonnets are back. Tickets start at $28 for adults and $18 for children, with ages 2 and under free. Prices vary by date, and SDBG members get 20% off standard pricing all season. The Garden says Lightscape draws more than 100,000 visitors a year. Dates close to the street fair will be busier than early-week nights in late November.

The Saturday after Thanksgiving is when Encinitas switches from big events to shopping at local stores. Encinitas 101's Shop Small Saturday runs noon to 3 p.m. on November 28, with live music, sidewalk sales, specials and limited-edition prints at participating businesses. Cardiff 101 holds its own Small Business Saturday the same day. More than 20 local businesses are offering specials, and shoppers have a chance to receive a limited-edition Cardiff-by-the-Sea poster with a purchase. Cardiff's Holiday Passport to Savings also starts that day and works at participating Cardiff businesses through January 31, 2027. Downtown, one new stop on the route is Juice Holler at 820 South Coast Highway 101. It is an Appalachian-themed wellness café from owner Kelly Sergott that serves smoothies, juices and salads, and Eater San Diego listed it among the city's new openings this year.

The first weekend of December belongs to the parade and to Cardiff. This year's Holiday Parade theme is "40 and Still Fabulous," and it steps off at 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, December 5. Groups that want to march can apply until November 13. The nonprofit entry fee is $75, and late applications pay an extra $25 if space remains. The next afternoon, Cardiff 101's free Kringle Mingle fills Aberdeen Drive with local makers, crafts, live music and photos with Santa. Cardiff 101 is also raising money for a replacement Christmas tree, which it plans to keep lit from Thanksgiving through New Year.

Where Leucadia fits on those same weekends

Leucadia's anchor this season is the farmers market, not a street closure. The Leucadia Farmers Market runs every Sunday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Oak Crest Middle School, 675 Balour Drive. The site is off the construction zone, so the market avoids the access problems along the highway. It also runs on two of the season's biggest Sundays. On November 22 the market wraps up at 2 p.m., while the street fair downtown runs until 4. On December 6 the market overlaps the Kringle Mingle in Cardiff.

The Saturday shopping promotions belong to Encinitas 101 and Cardiff 101. Nothing stops anyone from taking that same Shop Small idea north to the Leucadia stretch on November 28: coffee at Coffee Coffee, a stop at Leucadia Cyclery, a box from Leucadia Donut Shoppe. Northbound drivers should allow for the La Costa Avenue turnaround that businesses described over the summer, at least until the median and paving work is finished.

Finishing Segment C will not complete the Leucadia streetscape. Designs for Segment B, from Basil Street to Jupiter Street, and Segment A1, from A Street to Marcheta Street, are done, but neither has construction funding yet. Planned pedestrian rail crossings at Phoebe and Grandview streets won approval from the California Public Utilities Commission on February 5, 2026. The city's project page still lists them as in design. If the late-fall projection holds, the Jupiter-to-La Costa segment will open in the middle of the holiday season. That would make the season's last weeks the first time since early 2024 that this part of Leucadia's 101 is free of construction.

At Butler Group Real Estate, we follow what's changing along the 101 from Cardiff to La Costa Avenue the same way our neighbors do, one season at a time. If you're thinking about what your Encinitas home is worth as Leucadia's new streetscape opens, get your free North County home valuation.