The Eufaula Heritage Association has set its 21st Annual Christmas Tour of Homes for Saturday, December 5, 2026, and ticket prices are already posted on its tour information page. The 2026 houses haven't been announced yet. The 2025 lineup is the best preview of what to expect, and it shows a tour that has moved past the antebellum postcard. Of the eight homes open last December, three were built before the Civil War. Five were built after 1900, and the newest went up in 2007.
That mix affects which ticket makes sense, how you plan the afternoon, and whether a house on your own street could be on the next map.
Last Year's Lineup, Sorted by Year Built
The Heritage Association's 2025 Christmas homes page lists each stop with its address and a short history. Sorted by build date, the tour covered 154 years of Eufaula building.
| Year built | Home | Address | Style or detail from the tour page |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1853 | Kendall-Utley House | 238 Sanford Avenue | Carpenter Gothic, 15-foot ceilings |
| 1854 | Bray-Bennett | 413 North Eufaula Avenue | Greek Revival, National Register |
| 1860 | Fendall Hall | 917 Barbour Street | Italianate country villa, Alabama Historical Commission site |
| 1906 | Shorter Mansion | 340 North Eufaula Ave | Neoclassical Revival, National Register |
| 1920 | Wilde-Gray Home | 703 North Randolph Street | One-story brick, hip roof |
| 1935 | Gatty-Arnold House | 125 Cherry Street | One-story, shiplap siding, National Register |
| 1945 | The Martin Cottage | 119 Shorter Street | Small cottage, remodeled after a 2021 purchase |
| 2007 | The Stinson Home | 148 Anderson Drive | Brick home built by its current owners |
Fendall Hall and Shorter Mansion are the anchors. Fendall Hall has three rooms of Victorian-era murals, and its black-and-white marble floor tiles are original to the house. Shorter Mansion was completed in 1906 for Eli Sims Shorter, a cotton broker, and Wileyna Lamar of Macon. It was bought from the Shorter family at auction in 1965 for $33,000. Both houses have a public life of their own, and the Heritage Association notes that mansion tours are always available during the Christmas Tour.
The other six are private houses, and the bottom half of the table is where the tour reaches the streets most people actually live on.
What the Twentieth-Century Houses Brought
The newer homes earned their spots with the holiday collections inside, and their stories also tie back to downtown history.
The Wilde-Gray Home on North Randolph Street is the clearest example. According to the tour page, the bricks reportedly came from downtown buildings destroyed in the 1919 tornado. That makes a 1920 house a direct record of one of the town's worst days. In 2025 the trees there were decorated with ornaments collected on family trips, along with a collection of Christopher Radko pieces.
On Cherry Street, the Gatty-Arnold House was built in 1935 by Charles Gatty and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. That means a Depression-era one-story house sat on the tour with the same federal recognition as the 1854 Greek Revival on North Eufaula Avenue. The current owners bought it as a retirement home in 2012 and spent two years renovating it. Their collections include Mark Roberts fairies and Royal Copley planters.
The Martin Cottage on Shorter Street was built in 1945, bought in 2021, and remodeled inside. The tour page describes its decorating as "nothing fancy just fun and festive." The Stinson Home on Anderson Drive, built in 2007, centered on a tree hung with 45 years of ornaments. Some were handmade by children and grandchildren, and the family adds a new piece every year.
The older private homes kept up their side too. Bray-Bennett displayed a collection of Santas by Nan Metz, a Eufaula artist, along with a large Department 56 Snow Village. The Kendall-Utley House went with a snow theme, including a gingerbread kitchen, snowy village scenes, and a tree reaching toward its 15-foot ceilings.
Spread across that range of build dates, the stops covered several different parts of town. In 2025 the Heritage Association published an interactive map that marked each home with a yellow circle and gave driving directions to each one.
Why the Lineup Decides Which Ticket Makes Sense
Here is the 2026 pricing as posted:
- All Homes: $55
- All Homes plus After Hours Reception: $85
- After Hours Reception only: $40
- Individual Home: $7
The math depends on how many houses are on the map. Last year there were eight. Eight single-home tickets at $7 come to $56, one dollar more than the All Homes pass. With a similar lineup this year, the $55 pass only saves money if you visit every stop. If you plan to see two or three houses, perhaps the one on your block and one whose history you've always wondered about, single tickets cost $14 or $21.
Homes are open from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., and you can pay at the door. If you buy online, the Heritage Association sends a receipt, and that printed receipt is your ticket for entry.
Active-duty and retired military members and veterans get complimentary tickets with ID. The free admission doesn't extend to spouses or dependents, and it doesn't include the evening reception.
The Ninety Minutes That Need a Phone Call
The tour runs on walk-up tickets, but the reception afterward does not. Christmas After Hours at Shorter Mansion runs from 5:00 to 6:30 p.m. on the Saturday of the tour, with hors d'oeuvres and wine, at $40 a person. Seating is limited and reservations are required. Shorter Mansion tours are included with an After Hours reservation. Reservations are taken by phone at 334-687-3793 or 1-888-383-2852.
So the reception is the one part of December 5 that can't be decided that morning. It's also the only part that runs after the houses close at 5:00. If you're hosting out-of-town family that weekend, settle that reservation first and build the rest of the day around it.
The Same Saturday Downtown
The Eufaula Barbour County Chamber of Commerce describes the tour as held on the first Saturday in December "to coincide with the downtown Mistletoe Market." The market is a day of shopping at downtown shops and boutiques, with holiday sales and gifts. Main Street Alabama lists it among the December events that bring holiday shoppers downtown.
Last year, the city council minutes listed the Mistletoe Market on December 6, 2025, from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. If 2026 follows a similar schedule, the market would close an hour before the tour homes. That gives you a midday stretch to shop downtown between houses and an hour after the market closes to finish the tour before the reception at 5:00.
The rest of the holiday calendar isn't confirmed yet. In 2025, council minutes recorded a Christmas tree lighting at the entrance to the Yoholo Micco Walking Trail on December 1 and a Christmas parade on December 2 at 5:00 p.m. Those are last year's dates. The August 4, 2026 City Council minutes and the August 18, 2026 agenda, both posted on the city's Agenda Center, don't mention a 2026 parade, tree lighting, or market.
What's Set and What Isn't Yet
As of October 7, 2026, here is what's confirmed:
- Confirmed: Tour date of Saturday, December 5, 2026, home hours of 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., all four ticket prices, the military and veteran policy, and the 5:00 to 6:30 p.m. After Hours reception at Shorter Mansion.
- Confirmed: The Heritage Association's annual meeting on November 5, 2026, from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m.
- Not yet posted: The 2026 home lineup. The photos on the tour information page are labeled 2021.
- Not yet posted: 2026 Mistletoe Market hours, the parade date and route, and the tree lighting date.
The Christmas Tour of Homes started in 2005. Twenty-one years in, last year's stops went from an 1853 Carpenter Gothic on Sanford Avenue to a 2007 brick home on Anderson Drive. When the 2026 lineup is posted, the build years will tell you which ticket to buy.
At Chattahoochee Realty Group, we spend our days on these same streets, from Cherry Street to North Randolph and out to Anderson Drive. If you'd like to know the story behind a house you pass on your way to the tour, we're happy to share what we know.
