Tampa Palms' Holiday Season Starts on Thanksgiving Morning and Ends with a Nutcracker from Amberly Drive

The Shoppes at Amberly looks like most of the small plazas off Tampa Palms Boulevard. There's a Club Pilates at 15341 Amberly Drive and A Special Rose Florist at 15353. A few doors down is Tampa City Dance Center, the school of Tampa City Ballet. The company that trains there is about to stage The Nutcracker across three December weekends.

Mid-November in this neighborhood means the countdown to that production. The other dates on the Tampa Palms holiday calendar are also run close to home, by neighbors, a church on Bruce B. Downs Boulevard, and the owners association that lights the entries. Here's how the season comes together, in the order it happens.

A Nutcracker that comes out of a Tampa Palms plaza

Tampa City Ballet is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Its school, Tampa City Dance Center, trains dancers of all skill levels in a range of dance styles. Neighborhood News lists the ballet at 15367 Amberly Drive and the dance center at 15365 Amberly Drive. Its artistic director and choreographer is Paula Nuñez. Neighborhood News has noted that the costumes and sets are hallmarks of the company's productions.

The New Tampa Performing Arts Center at 8550 Hunters Village Road is a familiar stage for the company. Neighborhood News covered its "Don Quixote" there the weekend of March 21 to 23, and December's Nutcracker finishes its run there. On the company's Nutcracker page, the 2026 production plays two venues across three weekends:

For Tampa Palms households, the six shows at NTPAC are the closest option. The arts center's calendar has a Friday, December 11 performance from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. and a Saturday, December 12 matinee from 3 to 5 p.m. The USF dates come first, so families with a conflict on the NTPAC weekends can catch the production a week earlier, at the university.

Thanksgiving morning, before any of that

The season starts three weeks earlier with the Tampa Palms 5K Turkey Trot on Thursday, November 26, from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. The race page calls it a "fun, community-building event," and it isn't timed with bibs. That makes it a good fit for strollers and walkers as well as runners.

Logistics, from the registration page:

• Meeting point: inside the fenced area by the courts at the front of the school off Compton Drive
• Parking: the faculty lot off Compton Drive, Compton Park, or the back of the Tampa Palms Country Club lot
• Packets: pick up before race day or that morning
• Cost: $25 race fee plus a $2.50 sign-up fee
• Deadline: registration closes Friday, November 20, at 3 p.m.

The race also has a registration cap, so the field can fill up before the deadline. Anyone planning a family group should register early rather than waiting until the week of Thanksgiving.

The day after, the entries light up

In its December 2025 newsletter, the Tampa Palms Owners Association described the main entries lighting up every night with thousands of small lights starting the day after Thanksgiving, a tradition then 33 years running. The newsletter added that illuminated wreaths go up on the village monuments throughout Tampa Palms at the same time. The same issue described winter plantings of red snapdragons, red and white petunias, and silver Dusty Millers replacing the marigolds in the entry and median beds.

So the lights come on the morning after the Turkey Trot, and from there the calendar fills up quickly.

The weeks between, on the NTPAC stage

Between Thanksgiving and the Nutcracker, most of the holiday programming happens at the same Hunters Village Road theater where Tampa City Ballet finishes its run. The New Tampa Performing Arts Center's calendar lists:

1. Sunday, November 29, 3 to 5:30 p.m.: a free holiday screening of "The Muppet Christmas Carol"
2. Thursday, December 3, 7 to 9 p.m.: "ELVIS: A Blue Christmas Show" starring Matt Stone and The TEC Band
3. Friday, December 4, 8 to 10 p.m.: New Tampa Jazz Nights with Bryan J. Hughes & The Crew, playing songs from the band's new Christmas CD
4. Sunday, December 6, 3 to 5 p.m.: Florida Jazz Express and its Holiday Big Band Extravaganza
5. Tuesday, December 8, 8 to 10 p.m.: BK Jackson and Friends' Jingle Jazz Tour, built on saxophone, vocals and keyboard

The Muppets screening on November 29 costs nothing, which makes it the easiest way to spend Thanksgiving weekend's Sunday afternoon with houseguests who are still in town.

Before the holidays start, the same stage has a busy mid-November run. The Tampa Bay Symphony performs "Wild Kingdom and Swan Dreams" on Friday, November 13, at 8 p.m. Backtrack Blues Band, described as Florida's longest-running blues band, plays Saturday, November 14, at 8 p.m. Pianist Elena Ulyanova plays the Steinway Signature Series on Saturday, November 21. Soprano Daniella Mass headlines New Tampa Unplugged on Sunday, November 22.

St. James on Bruce B. Downs runs the giving side

The season's giving centers on St. James United Methodist Church at 16202 Bruce B. Downs Boulevard. Through Monday, November 23, the church is a collection point for the Metropolitan Ministries Holiday Tent. Food, turkeys and toys are accepted from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., according to St. James' events page. The collection closes three days before the Turkey Trot, so a Thanksgiving grocery run is a natural time to drop something off.

The church is also listed as the venue for "A Festive Holiday Experience," a candlelight event from Lumos Experiences, on Saturday, December 12. Shows run 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. and 8:30 to 9:30 p.m.

December 12 stacks up

That puts two events from this calendar on the same Saturday. Tampa City Ballet's Nutcracker matinee at NTPAC runs from 3 to 5 p.m., and the first candlelight show at St. James starts at 6:30. The schedule leaves time for dinner between the two, and both venues are in New Tampa, which keeps the drive between them short.

Back on Amberly Drive, the plaza is changing

The plaza where the Nutcracker comes from is due for a new neighbor. Neighborhood News reported in August that chef Luca Ammirati and Erika Ammirati were closing Frammi, their Italian restaurant at 17631 Bruce B. Downs Boulevard in North Palms Village, on August 22. They planned to reopen at 15363 Amberly Drive, in the space between Tampa City Ballet and a Tae Kwon Do studio, with a target of November.

Luca told the paper the new location is "a larger space, so we will have room for a bar and more tables." The menu is set to lean further into Italian dishes. The burgers and chicken are coming along, and the rest of the American menu from the Oakley's Grille days stays behind. The Ammiratis took over the original restaurant in 2018 and renamed it Frammi in 2022.

With Frammi's planned move, the Shoppes at Amberly would hold the dance school, a florist and an Italian restaurant with a bar in one row of storefronts, a few minutes from the theater on Hunters Village Road.

The calendar at a glance

Event times and listings can change, so check the venue's own page before you head out.

At 1 Step Ahead Realty Group, we're happy to sit down with you between the Turkey Trot and the last Nutcracker curtain, whether you want to talk about the neighborhood or about what's next for your own home. Get Started Today.