This post has been sponsored by My Local Markets.
The Outdoor Christmas Market at the Kemptville Campus (November 16 and 17) will give you the chance to shop for foods, handmade gifts, decorations and treasures from local artisans and farmers. Roughly 60 vendors will participate each day, and about half will turn over between Saturday and Sunday—so you can enjoy two different shopping experiences if you attend twice!
During the event, which runs from 11am to 4pm on both Saturday and Sunday, you can also bring your kids to visit Santa, snap a selfie inside a giant snow globe, take a horse-drawn wagon ride and enjoy live music of all sorts—including choir performances. Parking and activities are free.
“Being that it is our fifth year, I am hoping to make this market our biggest and best yet,” says Darlene Collin of My Local Markets. She launched the outdoor market when pandemic restrictions made indoor markets impossible, but the festive open-air event has been so popular that she continues to organize it each year. The 2024 theme is “The Magic of Christmas,” and part of the proceeds will benefit the Beth Donovan Hospice in Kemptville.
If you get hungry as you browse through the market, you can fuel up with chili, Crave tacos, BeaverTails, cheesecake, coffee, hot chocolate and other treats.
As if all that weren’t enough to entice you, the Outdoor Christmas Market is just one part of Christmas on Campus, a larger event happening at the Kemptville Campus that weekend. Another component of Christmas on Campus is the Wonderfall Art Show and Sale, taking place indoors at the campus’s W.B. George Centre. There, members of the North Grenville Arts Guild will be selling artworks of all sorts on Saturday and Sunday, from 11am to 4pm. Also, the Kemptville Campus Greenhouse will be open, and you can tour the cacti house.
But wait! There’s even more! Right after the market and the art show end on Saturday, November 16, you can head into downtown Kemptville to catch the Kemptville Rotary Santa Claus Parade. It will start at the corner of Van Buren and Bridge Streets at 4:30pm, wind through downtown Kemptville, and end beside the B&H grocery store. Local organizations will be collecting non-perishable food, cash donations for the Salvation Army Food Bank, and new, unwrapped children’s toys along the route.
And, of course, lots of independent shops and restaurants in downtown Kemptville will be open for your shopping and dining pleasure.
So why not plan a whole day trip to Kemptville that weekend? You won’t run out of things to see and do!
You’ll find the Kemptville Campus at 75 Campus Drive on the southern edge of Kemptville, just west of Prescott Street (County Road 44).
Looking for more tips on things to see and do in and around Ottawa? Subscribe to my free weekly newsletter or order a copy of my book, Ottawa Road Trips: Your 100-km Getaway Guide.
As the owner of Ottawa Road Trips, I acknowledge that I live on, work in and travel through the unceded, unsurrendered territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg Nation. I am grateful to have the opportunity to be present on this land. Ottawa Road Trips supports Water First, a non-profit organization that helps address water challenges in Indigenous communities in Canada through education, training and meaningful collaboration.
