In summer, Beverly Shores has something going on most weekends. Once the beach empties out, the town's November and December are set by a handful of small organizations, and each one keeps its own calendar. The Depot runs one show for four weeks. A design studio on Dunes Highway opens its doors two weekends a month. The residents' association has one December date. The national park's folk concerts come on Friday nights. Put those calendars next to each other and the season stops looking spread out. It collects on a few specific weekends, and the dates in between go quiet.
The Depot Sets the Outer Edges
The longest-running item on the calendar is the Depot Artisan Holiday Show at the Beverly Shores Depot Museum & Art Gallery, 525 S. Broadway. It opens Saturday, November 21, and closes Sunday, December 20. According to the Indiana Dunes visitor bureau's listing, admission is free.
The show is juried. The Depot says it spends the year looking for artists and artisans at shows around Chicago, Northwest Indiana and Southwest Michigan, and on artist sites online. What ends up on the tables runs from felt sculpture, button art and ceramics to handmade paper books, knit hats and scarves, tabletop linens and resin tables. There are also ornaments, gift books, paintings and sculpture.
The hours shape the rest of the season more than the inventory does. The show is open on weekends plus one weekday:
| Day | Hours |
|---|---|
| Opening day, Saturday, Nov. 21 | 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. |
| Black Friday, Nov. 27 | 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. |
| Saturdays | 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. |
| Sundays | 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. |
Black Friday is the only weekday on the schedule, so the Depot's holiday season comes to five Saturdays, five Sundays and one Friday. The Sunday hours are shorter, ending at 3 p.m., and that includes the last day.
A Studio That Opens Two Weekends a Month
The second calendar belongs to Blanket Fort, at 1 E. Dunes Highway, Unit 5. WBEZ described it as a design studio and shop when it opened this spring. Blanket Fort's own visit page says the studio is open the first and third weekends of each month, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., or by appointment. In May, Dunes Diva called the first-and-third pattern its summer and fall schedule. No holiday exceptions have been posted.
December's calendar makes that rhythm easy to map. December 1 is a Tuesday, so the first full weekend is December 5–6 and the third is December 19–20. November is less tidy because the month starts on a Sunday. If you count full Saturday–Sunday weekends, the first is November 7–8 and the third is November 21–22. If November 1 counts as the first weekend, everything moves up a week. For November, a quick call or a look at the studio's page settles it.
Where the Calendars Line Up
Lay the Depot's dates over Blanket Fort's full-weekend schedule and add the one-off events, and the season falls into a few dense weekends:
| Weekend | Depot Holiday Show | Blanket Fort | Also that weekend |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fri.–Sun., Nov. 20–22 | Opens Sat. 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sun. 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. | Open, if counting full weekends | Fri. Music Heritage concert, 7:30 p.m.; Sat. Chellberg Farm volunteer morning, 9 a.m. to noon |
| Fri.–Sat., Nov. 27–28 | Black Friday and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. | Not a scheduled weekend | Sat. Chesterton Hometown Holiday Celebration |
| Sat.–Sun., Dec. 5–6 | Sat. 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sun. 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. | Open | Sat. ABSR Holiday Hop; Sat. "Happy OWL-idays!" at Indiana Dunes State Park, 1 p.m. |
| Fri.–Sun., Dec. 18–20 | Final weekend; closes Sun. at 3 p.m. | Open | Fri. Music Heritage concert, 7:30 p.m. |
December 5 has the most going on. The Association of Beverly Shores Residents lists its Holiday Hop for that Saturday. The association's public calendar doesn't give a time or venue, so its members' newsletter, Sand Tracks, is the place to look for details. On the same afternoon, Indiana Dunes State Park has "Happy OWL-idays!" at 1 p.m. at its Nature Center. The Depot is open until 5, and Blanket Fort is on one of its scheduled weekends. One Saturday covers a Depot visit, a stop on Dunes Highway, an owl program at the state park and the town's own holiday gathering.
The weekend of December 18–20 is quieter, but there's a deadline attached. It's the Depot show's last weekend, and the final day has the shorter Sunday hours. It's also Blanket Fort's third weekend of December. Anyone counting on the show for last-minute gifts has until mid-afternoon on December 20.
The Fridays Before
Both bookend weekends start with a concert. Indiana Dunes National Park's Music Heritage Series brings the Save the Tunes Council to the stage on Friday, November 20, from 7:30 to 9 p.m. Friends of Indiana Dunes describes the group as local musicians who keep folk songs alive on traditional instruments, and notes that Friends supports many of its performances. Friends lists a second Music Heritage Series concert for Friday, December 18, at the same 7:30 to 9 p.m. time. Neither listing names a venue. For that detail, the park points people to (219) 395-1882 or nps.gov/indu.
So the Depot show opens the morning after the first concert and closes two days after the second. The season starts with a Friday night of folk music followed by a Saturday morning at the Depot, and it ends the same way.
What Fills the Gaps Between
The events between the busy weekends mostly sit outside town or come one at a time. In date order:
- Sunday, November 15, 1 to 3 p.m. Camp Good Fellow History at Good Fellow Lodge on the Dunes Learning Center campus. Admission is $5.
- Saturday, November 21, 9 a.m. to noon. A volunteer care morning at Chellberg Farm, listed by Friends of Indiana Dunes. Volunteers meet at the Bailly Homestead/Chellberg Farm parking lot. The Depot opens the same morning, so this is the one date where the two compete.
- Saturday, November 28. Chesterton's Hometown Holiday Celebration & Twilight Parade at Thomas Centennial Park and the Chesterton Bandstand, 220 Broadway. The visitor bureau's listing mentions a parade, tree lighting, carriage rides and Santa, but no start time. The Depot is open until 5 that day, so a daytime stop in Beverly Shores and an evening in Chesterton fit on the same Saturday.
- Wednesday, December 2, 6 p.m. Save the Dunes holds its members' annual meeting and Holiday Celebration at Barker House, 444 Barker Road, Michigan City. Voting requires membership in good standing.
- December 14 through January 5. The yearly window for Christmas Bird Counts, according to Indiana Audubon. Individual counts each choose a date inside that window, and the Audubon page is where Indiana count dates appear.
Apart from the bird-count window, Save the Dunes' Wednesday evening is the only weekday date on the list. Every other dated event falls on a weekend, and most of it lands on the weekends where the Depot and Blanket Fort are both open.
One Trail Detail for the Same Weeks
Winter walks are part of the off-season, and one closure near town runs through the same weeks. Indiana Dunes National Park's alerts page says Marquette Greenway construction will close sections of the Glenwood Dunes Trail from April through December 2026, and sections of the Little Calumet River/Mnoké Prairie Trail from May through December. The park says closure dates may shift as work goes on and asks hikers to follow posted closures. The park's closure maps show which sections are affected before you head out.
The concert and park program pages note that schedules can change, and Blanket Fort hasn't posted holiday hours. Checking each organizer's page the week of an event is a good idea, especially on the weekends where everything lands at once.
If any of these December weekends at the Depot has you curious about what your own place on the dunes would be worth to a buyer next spring, Shoreline Advice can give you a quiet, data-backed read before the season turns. Request a Free Home Valuation, and Rob Gow and Chris Pfauser will put the numbers together on your schedule, not the market's.
