The pumpkin on your front step this Saturday has more work ahead of it, as long as nobody carves it. On Sunday, November 22, Marin Art and Garden Center will turn uncarved Halloween pumpkins into succulent centerpieces for the Thanksgiving table. When the holiday is over, the whole arrangement goes into the garden, pumpkin and all.
That workshop shows how the season works in Ross this year. The Town of Ross's November and December 2026 calendars show public meetings and office closures, with no holiday event on Ross Common. The season happens at 30 Sir Francis Drake Boulevard. The Center's calendar runs from a Halloween pumpkin to a December tea service, and the sign-up for the December half opens before most of the November half has happened.
The calendar starts with something you already own
Most fall workshops ask you to show up with nothing. Gourds & Gratitude asks for a small or medium uncarved pumpkin, and it is built for a mixed-age table. In its listing on Eventbrite, the Center describes it this way:
"Bring your small or medium uncarved Halloween pumpkin to repurpose for your Thanksgiving table. Everyone is welcome at this fun and sustainable craft session; parents, grandparents, and kids can create an arrangement together."
The session runs from 10 a.m. to noon. The $40 admission covers the succulents, soil and materials for one pumpkin, and each additional arrangement costs $25. That makes a family of four building separate centerpieces $115, or $40 if everyone works on one together. If the porch pumpkin doesn't survive the weekend, there's a box on the registration form to request one, though the Center says quantities are limited.
The date matters too. November 22 is the Sunday before Thanksgiving, so the centerpiece goes home with four days to spare before the table is set.
Four weeks, from free to about a hundred dollars
The pumpkin workshop is one of several dated programs between now and Thanksgiving, and the prices vary widely. Here they are in order, with prices as Eventbrite displays them:
- Botanical Collage, Thursday, October 29, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., listed at $103.07. That's this evening for anyone reading on publication day.
- Haiku in the Garden, Autumn, Friday, November 6, 3 to 5 p.m. It's free.
- The Reset: Autumn Sound Bath, Saturday, November 14, 6:30 to 7:30 p.m., listed at $49.77.
- Make a Paper Poppy Bouquet, Thursday, November 19, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., listed at $71.09.
- Garden to Cup: Grow, Blend, & Gift Your Own Herbal Tea, Friday, November 20, 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., listed at $103.07.
- Gourds & Gratitude: Thanksgiving Centerpiece Workshop, Sunday, November 22, 10 a.m. to noon, $40, plus $25 for each additional arrangement.
Three of the six fall on weeknights or weekday mornings, and the cheapest paid ticket costs less than half of the most expensive one. The Haiku afternoon on November 6 costs nothing and runs during school pickup hours on a Friday. Both $103.07 sessions end with something to take home. The herbal tea class lines up with holiday gifting, since its title promises a blend you grow, mix and give away.
All six take place at the Center's campus. The grounds stay free whether or not you buy a ticket. Marin Art and Garden Center says its gardens are open to foot traffic from sunrise to sunset, seven days a week. Free parking and public restrooms are available from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. That means the Haiku session and a walk through the Rose Garden on the same November afternoon cost exactly the same, which is nothing.
December's sign-up opens before November's first event
The handoff between the two months is the date to plan around. On its Winter Wonderland page, the Center lists the season as December 4 to 23, 2026, and says registration opens at the end of October.
For a reader on October 29, that window is opening this week. It opens a full week before the free Haiku afternoon and more than three weeks before the pumpkin workshop. Anyone waiting until after Thanksgiving to look at December will be signing up nearly four weeks after registration opened.
Here's what the Center has announced for the December run:
- Botanical Collage, which returns from its October 29 session
- Holiday Card Making
- Ornament Painting
- Shop Local Winter Market
- Wreathmaking
- Immersive Winter Puppetry Show
- Gingerbread Houses
- Botanical Printmaking
- Winter Sound Bath, the December counterpart to the November 14 Reset
- Crown & Crumpet Holiday Tea
As of the Center's announcement, individual dates, times and prices for these activities hadn't been posted. The registration page is the place to find out which Saturday the Shop Local Winter Market falls on and when the tea is seated. The list shows the two months are deliberately linked. Botanical Collage and the sound bath each run once in fall and come back in winter, so anyone who goes on October 29 or November 14 gets a preview of what the December version offers.
A season staged in a garden under construction
This all takes place while the Center is in the middle of a capital project. A Marin Magazine partner article published July 1, 2026 describes the Sowing the Seeds campaign, a $6.5 million effort that had raised 95 percent of its goal at the time. The article says the renovation began in July and covers historic preservation, accessibility improvements, environmental restoration and expanded plantings. Construction is slated for completion in early 2027, and the Center plans to stay open for events and programming throughout.
By that timeline, this November and December are the last holiday season on the campus before the renovation is finished. The same piece names the gardens that stay free every day of the year. They are the Rose Garden, the Habitat Garden, the Fountain Pond, the Edible Garden, the Studio Grove and the hillside Basketry Garden.
The pumpkin workshop ties into this. Its listing suggests moving the succulents into the garden after Thanksgiving, either straight into a bed or into a planter. In a year when the Center is expanding its own plantings, the take-home project from its November workshop is a planting too.
Before and after, within a few minutes of the garden
The Friday, November 20 tea class lets out at 12:30 p.m., and Ross Common has a newer lunch option than many longtime residents may realize. Taqueria Marin is at 13 Ross Common. In a January 6, 2026 story, the Marin Independent Journal reported that the owners had opened it the month before and described its Mexican street-food menu. Its website lists hours of Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., closed Sunday. That works for the Friday tea class and for dinner before the Saturday evening sound bath. It doesn't work for the Sunday pumpkin workshop, so plan Sunday lunch somewhere else.
The Ross Post Office is on the same block at 1 Ross Common, with retail hours Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. It's closed weekends, which matters if Garden to Cup tea blends are going out as gifts to family in other states.
When November ends, the season widens beyond Ross. Marin Center in San Rafael opens its free Holiday Light Spectacular on November 27, 2026, the day after Thanksgiving. It runs daily from 5 to 9 p.m. through January 3, 2027. Its movie nights include Hook on Saturday, November 28 at 6 p.m. and Ghostbusters on Saturday, December 19 at 6 p.m., with two screenings on December 26 at 5:30 and 7 p.m. The lights open one week before Winter Wonderland starts in Ross on December 4. Between them, the two cover the whole stretch from Thanksgiving weekend to the week of Christmas.
So the dates to keep are short. This week, register for December. On October 31, leave the pumpkin uncarved. On November 22, bring it to 30 Sir Francis Drake Boulevard by 10 a.m.
If the season has you thinking about your own home in Ross, Raquel Newman is happy to talk it through over coffee after a morning at the Center. Request your private market valuation, and we'll start with what makes your corner of Ross different.
