Under the Oaks
As the Central Valley cools into winter, the valley oaks at Kaweah Oaks Preserve go quiet. Bare branches, long shadows, the kind of stillness that makes a place feel old. For three nights each December, that stillness gives way to string lights, wood smoke, live music, and the sound of a community gathered under a 322-acre canopy that has stood here for generations.
The Holiday Market is a European-style winter market held right in the preserve: artisan vendors, food and drink, hayrides, and cozy seasonal activities for the whole family. It's also a fundraiser. Every ticket and every purchase helps protect the land it's held on.
The Preserve
Kaweah Oaks Preserve sits just outside Exeter, and it's one of the last remaining valley oak riparian woodlands left in the San Joaquin Valley. A rare stretch of the landscape that once lined the region's rivers before most of it was cleared for farms and towns. Walk it in daylight and you'll find birdsong, seasonal wetlands, and oaks old enough to have outlasted a few centuries of Central Valley history. Walk it during the Market and you'll find that same land dressed for the holidays, doing what it's always done: bringing people together.
Who We Are
The Holiday Market is presented by Sequoia Riverlands Trust, a nonprofit land trust working to conserve the lands and waters of California's heartland. Since 2000, SRT has protected more than 53,000 acres across the Central Valley and southern Sierra Nevada from family farms and critical wildlife habitat to public preserves like this one through conservation easements, habitat restoration, and hands-on stewardship.
Kaweah Oaks Preserve is part of that work, and it's open to the public year-round. The Holiday Market is one night a year it puts on its best coat.
Why It Matters
Proceeds from The Holiday Market go directly toward SRT's conservation work: keeping trails open, restoring habitat, and running the education programs that introduce the next generation to this land. A gift shop purchase or a ticket at the gate is also a small act of stewardship. A way of making sure these oaks are still standing, and this market is still gathering people beneath them, for holidays to come.