Old Ellicott City's biggest holiday events all fall within eight days. The free Holiday Train Garden at the B&O Ellicott City Station Museum opens Friday, Nov. 27. Small Business Saturday on Main Street is the next afternoon. Midnight Madness and the tree lighting follow the next Friday, Dec. 4. Lot B, the riverside lot at the base of Main Street, is still a construction site for the county's flood tunnel. It will stay that way until mid-2027.
So the holiday season in historic Ellicott City now starts at the top of the hill and works its way down.
Eight days, three events
Here's how the week lines up:
- Friday, Nov. 27: Holiday Train Garden opens. Model trains fill the B&O Ellicott City Station Museum, including the year-round layout in the Freight House. Howard County lists the price as $0.00. It runs through Jan. 3 during the museum's normal business hours, and the museum's information line is 410-313-1945.
- Saturday, Nov. 28: Small Business Saturday. The Ellicott City Partnership lists it on Main Street starting at 1 p.m. According to Visit Howard County, it's a Main Street shopping day with local-business deals and seasonal offerings.
- Friday, Dec. 4: Midnight Madness and the tree lighting. It runs from 6 p.m. to midnight and opens with the annual tree lighting, with Santa. After that come sidewalk sales, holiday cocktails, and restaurant specials up and down the street, according to Visit Howard County.
Main Street keeps its holiday lights up all season, so everything from the first train-garden visitors to the last Midnight Madness shoppers happens on a lit street.
What happened to Lot B
Howard County's Department of Public Works closed Parking Lot B on April 28, 2025. The county describes it as the lot "along the west bank of the Patapsco River at the base of Historic Ellicott City's Main Street." The closure makes room for construction of the North Tunnel's outfall structure, just north of the lot, where the tunnel will empty into the river. According to the county's closure notice, the work is expected to finish by mid-2027, weather permitting, and the lot will reopen then.
That makes this the second holiday season without Lot B, and the last one before its scheduled reopening.
Two other details from that notice matter this time of year. First, the county lifted the two-hour parking limits along Maryland Avenue until the project is finished, which opens up unrestricted parking near lower Main Street. Second, the signs pointing drivers to Lot B have been taken down around lower Main Street for the length of the project. If you still have Lot B in your head as the default, the signs won't remind you otherwise.
The construction schedule matters too. The county set work hours at Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Small Business Saturday falls on a non-work day. Midnight Madness starts at 6 p.m. on a Friday, more than two hours after the crews' scheduled quitting time. Train-garden visits on weekends also miss the work window. The lot stays closed, but holiday evenings fall outside its scheduled work hours.
What's going on underground
The outfall is the end point of the Extended North Tunnel, the main project in the county's EC Safe and Sound plan. The tunnel is 18 feet across. It will carry stormwater from the West End of town underground, away from Main Street, and out to the Patapsco River. Construction started in June 2024 at a site near Papillon Drive, where crews dug the shaft for the tunnel boring machine.
That machine is about 300 feet long and named Rocky after a public vote. It's working through solid granite more than 100 feet below the surface. When WBAL visited the tunnel in April, Rocky was 150 feet underground and almost fully assembled. It came from Ohio and had already bored 20 miles of tunnel in the U.S. and Hong Kong. Officials told the station it would be cutting through 65 feet of granite a day by early summer, running 24 hours a day, six days a week.
The county expects substantial completion of the whole tunnel project in fall 2027.
Another project is on deck. The Maryland Avenue Culverts, a pair of new pipe culverts running from Lower Main Street to the Patapsco, are in final design. That's the same Maryland Avenue that's absorbing parking while Lot B is closed. The county's project page says Maryland Avenue road closures may come with that work and that the exact impacts are still being studied. Neither Maryland Avenue item affects this holiday week, but both are worth watching heading into 2027.
Starting from the top of town
With the bottom lot closed, Visit Howard County's directions page lists several ways to get in from above.
- Lot F, off Fels Lane just above Ellicott Mills Drive. Coming down Ellicott Mills Drive, it's the left turn before you reach Main Street.
- The Roger Carter Center lot, on Fels Lane off Ellicott Mills Drive, just above Lot F.
- The Howard County Circuit Court lot, reached from US 40 by way of Rogers Avenue to Court House Drive. Court House Drive ends at the lot, and stairs lead down to Main Street from there.
The Howard County Welcome Center, at 410-313-1900, answers questions about getting into town and parking.
On foot, starting at the top flips the evening. You come down the hill under the lights, past the upper Main Street shops and restaurants. The tree lighting kicks off Midnight Madness at 6 p.m., so anyone parking up top that night should leave time for the walk down before it starts.
Upper Main Street is also getting some new investment. In September, Business Monthly reported that Phoenix Upper Main's owner, Mark Hemmis, is working to prepare the smaller of the pub's two Main Street buildings to serve the public. That work depends on Historic Preservation Commission review and a tax-credit effort. 2026 marks six years since the pub moved to its current location. We covered that uphill move in our fall look at Main Street's restaurant reshuffle.
The same week elsewhere in Howard County
Other Howard County events overlap with Main Street's week, which helps if you're planning around family or out-of-town guests.
Turf Valley Resort, up Route 40 from the historic district, hosts A Crooner's Christmas on Saturday, Nov. 28 at 7 p.m. That's the evening after Small Business Saturday's 1 p.m. start. Good Shot Judy, a 10-piece swing band, plays classic Christmas crooner songs with The Satin Dollz. The show is open to all ages, and tickets are required. Turf Valley also hosts a Handmade Holiday & Gift Market on Dec. 6 and Dec. 13, the two Sundays after Midnight Madness.
In Columbia, the Merriweather District holds its tree lighting on Nov. 20 from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m., with the countdown at 7 p.m. That's a week before the train garden opens. The Color Burst Ice Rink also opens that night and runs through Jan. 31, 2027. Tickets are $12 per person plus tax, and skate rentals are $3. The Merriweather Holiday Market runs Dec. 4 through 6, so its opening day falls on Midnight Madness night. If you want both, the market has two more days, and Main Street's tree lighting happens only once.
Back in Ellicott City, the train garden stays open through Jan. 3. After the busy week is over, you can still come back and see the trains at the B&O museum on a quieter afternoon.
When I moved here, the first thing that made Ellicott City feel like home was learning how it actually works: which streets climb, where to park, and which nights bring the whole town out. If you're new to Howard County or planning a move, the Ultimate Moving to Maryland Guide from Moving to Maryland with Shari covers more of that local know-how. Feel free to reach out if you'd like a walk down Main Street with someone who learned it the same way you will.
