Paradise Valley doesn't have a main street to string lights over, so its holiday season runs on resort reservations. Thanksgiving is on November 26 this year, and five resorts within a few minutes of each other are serving a holiday meal that day. Adult prices run from $135 to $189. Each one's December calendar shows what kind of holiday it's built for.
The resort that was supposed to join that list is the Ritz-Carlton Paradise Valley at the Palmeraie project. It enters the season as an unfinished hotel in a liquidation plan, and creditors have until December 7 to vote on it. The rest of this guide covers the reservations that matter now, roughly in the order you'll need to make them.
Thanksgiving Is the One Day Every Resort Competes Head to Head
For most of the season, these properties offer different kinds of evenings. On November 26 they all serve the same holiday, so this is the one day you can compare them side by side.
| Resort and restaurant | Format | Hours on Nov. 26 | Adult price | Child price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LON's at The Hermosa Inn | Three-course prix fixe | Noon to 8 p.m. | $135 plus tax and gratuity | $35 plus tax and gratuity |
| Prado, Omni Scottsdale Resort & Spa at Montelucia | Four-course dinner | 2 to 7 p.m. | $155 | Varies |
| Hearth '61, Mountain Shadows | Dinner | 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. | $159 | $35, ages 12 and under |
| Elements, Sanctuary Camelback Mountain | Dinner | 11:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. | $175 | $55, ages 12 and under |
| Rita's Cantina, JW Marriott Scottsdale Camelback Inn | Brunch with Santa | 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. | $189 | $79, ages 3 to 10 |
| Hearth '61 take-home meal | Pickup | 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. | $84 | $42, ages 12 and under |
The lowest dining-room price on the list is LON's $135 before tax and gratuity, and even that is well above the $84 Mountain Shadows charges for its take-home meal. That $84 option is the only one on the list you can eat in your own dining room. Mountain Shadows needs take-home orders by 5 p.m. on Tuesday, November 24, five days after this post goes up. The dine-in menu at Hearth '61 includes slow-roasted turkey from Two Wash Ranch.
The Camelback Inn brunch has the highest menu price, and the price is for more than the food. The resort's holiday page lists live music, face painting, caricatures and Santa from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., with professional photos throughout the day. Add 20% gratuity and 8.8% sales tax to the $189 menu price. Lincoln Steakhouse & Bar and Rita's Cantina also serve Thanksgiving dinners on the property.
Sanctuary at 5700 E. McDonald Drive has the most to do that day. Elements serves dinner from 11:30 a.m. on, and the resort's annual Turkey Trot runs Thanksgiving morning, so you can make a full day of it.
After Thanksgiving, Each Resort Builds a Different Kind of December
After the shared holiday, the calendars split up. The Hermosa Inn fills December with family events and a garden concert, while Sanctuary's dates are small classes. Montelucia puts its season into one themed bar, and at Camelback Inn the holiday offerings are mostly room packages. Here's December in date order:
- Nov. 28 to Jan. 3: Blitzen's at Centro Bar, Omni Montelucia. Omni's holiday page bills it as the chain's signature Christmas bar, decorated well past the usual. It opens the Saturday after Thanksgiving and runs into the first weekend of January, so it covers more of the season than anything else on this list.
- Dec. 6 to 31: Holiday packages at Camelback Inn. Overnight guests can book a tree-and-stockings room decorating package for $250 per stay, or gingerbread kits for $30 each.
- Dec. 9: Holiday martini class, Sanctuary.
- Dec. 12: Winter Glow, Sanctuary. An evening of aura painting and meditation.
- Dec. 13: Gingerbread-house workshop and brunch at LON's at The Hermosa Inn, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tickets are $50 per person, plus $75 for each gingerbread house.
- Dec. 20: Esteban Christmas garden concerts at LON's. There are two seatings, with tapas and wine, at $175 per person.
- Dec. 24 and 25: Christmas prix-fixe at LON's. Executive Chef Brian Peterson serves three courses at $135 per adult and $35 per child, before tax and gratuity.
- Dec. 25: Christmas Day dinner at Elements, Sanctuary, 11:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. It costs $185 per adult and $65 for children 12 and under.
- Dec. 31: New Year's Eve at LON's. Four courses with live music until 12:30 a.m., at $200 or $230 per person depending on seating. Wine pairings cost extra.
The Hermosa Inn's experiences page accounts for five of those nine dates. If you want one place for the whole season, LON's has an event for nearly every stage of it, from a family gingerbread morning in mid-December to a dinner that runs past midnight on New Year's Eve.
The two resorts that serve both holidays price Christmas differently. At Sanctuary, Elements goes from $175 on Thanksgiving to $185 on Christmas Day, and the children's price goes from $55 to $65. LON's holds Christmas at the same $135 and $35 it charges on Thanksgiving, which makes New Year's Eve the most expensive night on its calendar.
The Town's Tree Lighting Used to Happen at a Resort, Too
The town has relied on its resorts for holiday gatherings for years. A Town of Paradise Valley calendar listing for a Holiday Tree Lighting Ceremony put Santa, cocoa and cookies at Montelucia, 4949 E. Lincoln Drive, on December 2, 2014, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Admission was free.
This year, the nearest public tree lighting is just over the town line. Scottsdale's Scottsdazzle tree lighting is at Scottsdale Waterfront on Saturday, November 28, at 7 p.m. It features a 36-foot tree, music from Phat Cat Swinger, a Merchantile Market pop-up and Santa. Blitzen's opens at Montelucia that same night, so you can do both on one Saturday.
The Holiday Address That Isn't on the Calendar
The Ritz-Carlton Paradise Valley was planned to add another resort to this list, with two restaurants that would have been new to town. In a November 2025 court declaration, Five Star Development's affiliates described a 215-room hotel with its luxury interior finishes not yet started. The same filing listed Mott 32 and Carbone as planned restaurants.
The affiliates filed for Chapter 11 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas on November 4, 2025. Five Star's announcement presented the filing as a way to protect the hotel and move the Palmeraie project toward completion. The debtors' filing declaration said the goal was to stop its lender, Madison Realty Capital, from collecting or foreclosing while the debtors looked for financing to finish the work. The debtors traced the stall to a funding slowdown that, by their account, started in early 2025. The lender dispute is still a matter of the parties' competing positions.
Nearly a year later, the plan has changed direction. The amended plan filed October 14, 2026 is a liquidation plan. Here are the terms that matter for the hotel's future:
- A trust takes over. The remaining assets move into a Plan Trust, which will manage them, sell them and pay out the proceeds.
- There is no buyer yet. After confirmation, a court-approved process markets the hotel for sale. The sale is generally due within six months of approval of bidding procedures, with up to two six-month extensions.
- The minimum price is $570 million. An equity holder or its designee has an option to buy the hotel, its furnishings and equipment, and the undeveloped land for at least $570 million in cash, plus specified adjustments.
- A buyer has to finish the hotel. A qualifying bidder must name an experienced hotel developer committed to completing it.
The disclosure statement sets the ballot deadline at 1 p.m. Central on December 7, 2026. That's the Monday before LON's gingerbread brunch. Marketing the hotel starts only after the court enters a confirmation order. From there, the sale has to close no later than six months after bidding procedures are approved, unless one or both extensions are used, and the buyer still has to bring in a developer to finish the hotel.
So the 2026 season runs entirely through the resorts already operating on Lincoln and McDonald.
Book in This Order
The deadlines come in a set order. Thanksgiving tables go first, and the Hearth '61 take-home order closes at 5 p.m. on November 24. Next are the LON's dates with limited seatings: the December 13 gingerbread brunch, the two Esteban concert seatings on December 20 and the New Year's Eve dinner. Blitzen's and Sanctuary's December classes fill in the weeks between, and Blitzen's stays open through January 3 for anyone who starts celebrating late.
The Palmeraie site will keep changing well after the holidays, and the sale process will take a while to play out. If you'd like to know where your own home's value stands while that happens, Gina Wilkerson can give you an appraiser's view of it. Start with your Instant Home Valuation, and when you're ready to talk through the numbers, Gina will walk you through them herself.
