On a November evening in 2016, 185 Sea Cliff residents sat down to dinner without a single restaurant reservation among them. As NorthWord News reported, the Sea Cliff Civic Association split the crowd about evenly among four homes for appetizers. Smaller groups of six to ten then moved on to dinner, prepared and served by 20 different hosts, and everyone came together at the Sea Cliff Yacht Club for dessert and drinks.
So one night took 24 households willing to set a table for people they might not know well. That ratio is the most useful number for understanding a Sea Cliff November and December. Most of the village's holiday calendar has no central venue, no vendor tents and no paid staff. The events happen in kitchens, on porches and along sidewalks, so how big each one gets depends on how many neighbors agree to host, act or hide something.
The Dinner That Needs Hosts Before It Needs Guests
The 2026 Progressive Dinner is set for Saturday, November 14, from 6:30 to 11 p.m. The format hasn't changed: appetizers in one home, dinner in another, and dessert at the Sea Cliff Yacht Club, made by fellow residents. Guest tickets are $50 per person, with a limit of two per sign-up.
The hosting details on the association's sign-up page show how the evening works. An appetizer host takes 25 to 30 guests, and a dinner host takes 6 to 10. Every host home gets a gift certificate to a local liquor store and two free tickets to the evening. At those sizes, one appetizer home can feed the start of the night for about as many people as three or four dinner hosts can handle. The dinner course needs the most volunteers, and it decides how many tickets the night can support.
That is also why the page warns that seating is limited. Preference goes to past hosts and newcomers, and confirmed participants were to hear back by email by November 2. That confirmation date has now passed, so questions about this year's seats go to the organizers. For next fall, hosting is the route to remember: one email to [email protected] saying whether you would take appetizers or dinner.
The tradition is still going strong. The Herald covered the 2024 dinner, held on November 2 that year, as an evening of walking between homes before ending at the Yacht Club. Its photos include organizers Heidi Hunt and Ann DiPietro at the dessert table.
Scrooge Performs on a Neighbor's Porch
The same rule applies in December, when the stage is the village itself. The Scrooge Stroll is a moving reenactment of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol." It meets at Centennial Garden, across from the Children's Library, and the association schedules it for early December.
The Stroll started in 2015. According to the Herald's 2022 account, two Civic Association members came back from vacation excited about Dickens-themed Christmas events they had seen in other towns in the Northeast. Association member Dan DiPietro told the Herald the group pictured a walking play through Sea Cliff, in the spirit of "Shakespeare in the Park."
"We all thought that's it's such a beautiful village that we should take advantage of that and go to different houses and buildings," DiPietro told the Herald.
The houses are the point. The Herald's 2024 photo coverage shows performers on the porches of houses across the village, with scenes staged outside buildings and even in parking lots. In 2022, the route covered landmarks, buildings and front porches, starting and ending outside the Sea Cliff Children's Library. DiPietro has played Scrooge himself, and the rest of the cast is residents in period costume. In 2024, Ann DiPietro played one of the ghosts and Bevy Beaudin played Tiny Tim.
A cast of neighbors brings a problem a professional company wouldn't have. Director Fred Stroppel told the Herald in 2022 that the adult actors had grown comfortable in roles they had played for almost a decade. Child roles are harder to fill, he said, because children often outgrow their characters within a few years. The show needs a new Tiny Tim every few seasons, and that Tiny Tim comes from the village.
The Stroll last ran on December 7, 2025, with amateur actors of all ages, according to the Herald. The association hasn't posted a 2026 date yet. Its Holiday Celebration on the Village Green follows the Stroll on the first Sunday in December, with songs, blessings and possibly a visit from the Clauses. This year the first Sunday falls on December 6. Check the association's site before planning around that date.
Thanksgiving Weekend Is a Walking Game
The Saturday after Thanksgiving follows the same pattern, with the village streets as the game board. The Thanksgiving Scavenger Hunt is set for Saturday, November 28, 2026, at 2 p.m., starting at the Sea Cliff Firehouse. Teams of two to five walk the village solving clues and completing missions, and each mission carries a name, a description and a point value. One person per team registers on the Scavr app.
The hunt comes from an older tradition. The association's fall events list still names a "Turkey Hunt." In 2016, NorthWord News reported that well over 100 residents turned out for the fifth annual Headless Park Turkey Hunt. Members of the Sea Cliff Youth Council hid 300 rubber birds, set out refreshments and collected canned goods for Mutual Concerns, and a costumed "Great Turkey" posed for Polaroids. Heidi Hunt, a board member at the time, chaired it.
The rubber birds came back in winter form. The Holiday Duck Hunt has families walk the village to collect ten holiday rubber ducks each in late December or early January. Dan DiPietro has put together videos of the 2022 through 2025 hunts.
The Season, Start to Finish
Here is how the calendar lines up from this week through January, with confirmed dates first:
- Thursday, November 12, 4 to 5:45 p.m.: "Ed Lieberman Presents: Frida Kahlo," in person at the Sea Cliff Village Library, 300 Sea Cliff Avenue.
- Saturday, November 14, 6:30 to 11 p.m.: Progressive Dinner, in host homes and at the Sea Cliff Yacht Club.
- Sunday, November 15, noon to 5 p.m.: Shop Glen Cove Showcase, a holiday shopping event with local vendors and food at the Knights of Columbus, 81 Sea Cliff Avenue. It is run by the Glen Cove Chamber, just outside the village line.
- Saturday, November 28, 2 p.m.: Thanksgiving Scavenger Hunt, starting at the Sea Cliff Firehouse.
- Early December, date to come: Scrooge Stroll from Centennial Garden, then the Holiday Celebration on the Village Green on the first Sunday of the month.
- Through the season: Holiday Decorations. Take an outdoor photo of your home or a neighbor's and email it to the association.
- Late December or early January: Holiday Duck Hunt.
- January, or whenever it snows: Snowman Contest. Build one, share it with the association, and you could win a prize.
The Glen Cove showcase is the only event on that list built around a hall and a vendor setup time. Almost everything else needs a host, an actor, a hider or a photographer from the village itself.
Why the Headcounts Move
Because the events rely on volunteers, attendance swings from year to year more than at a ticketed venue. The Progressive Dinner drew 185 people in 2016, when 24 host households took part. The Scrooge Stroll drew roughly 70 people in 2022, its seventh year. In 2024, more than 50 attendees came out in the cold for it. Those numbers depend on whether enough families offer to cook dinner for eight, whether a child is the right age to play Tiny Tim, and whether the porch owners along the route say yes again.
The Civic Association has organized village activities since the 1940s and describes its mission as helping build a close community in Sea Cliff. Each holiday event runs on that same model, and you can get involved by emailing [email protected].
If your dining room has hosted a Progressive Dinner course or your porch has served as a Scrooge Stroll stop, and you're wondering what your home is worth these days, Irene Rallis brings nearly 30 years of North Shore experience to that answer, with discretion and care. Request Your Complimentary Home Valuation.
