Las Vegas Holidays: From Thanksgiving Feasts to Glittering Lights and a New Year’s Blast

Your perfect holiday awaits

As Southern Californians, it’s never too early – or too late – to start planning your Vegas getaway, especially with LA Times Studios’ own travel magazines and epic adventures and broader trip ideas and vacation inspiration offering fresh inspiration each season. Those living here within striking distance may be thinking about that reunion trip for the whole family set for May 2027 or might be setting this magazine down and getting in a car right now because the mood suits them to dash off to the Strip for the weekend, whether it’s for a simple overnight or an over-the-top stay like buying out the historic Golden Gate Hotel for a private holiday celebration.

Since Vegas is omnipresent and always abuzz with activity, you can get those 2026 holiday plans out of the way right now: Sin City has events, specials and makeovers for each of the fall/winter high holidays, whether you’re interested in being stuffed (Thanksgiving) in the spirit (Christmas) or singing along (New Year’s Eve) — or even carving out time for relaxing Las Vegas escapes beyond the usual chaos. Read on for some holiday events to match whatever mood you find yourself in and with no thought to how much (or little) planning you’d like to do beforehand.

Professional chef carves a whole, roasted Turkey. An impressive centerpiece for family party, Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year celebration. Festive holiday and season greeting. Warm light.

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Thanksgiving: Let Sin City do the Cooking

Try Turkey Day without the 5-hour roasting time. While Thanksgiving may not seem to be a traditional time to visit Vegas, there is something of an advantage to packing up the family and leaving behind the meal prep. Las Vegas’ reputation as a global gathering place for fine dining shines, and all of those famed celeb chefs love to offer special holiday menus.

For Thanksgiving night (Nov. 26 this year), exact restaurant menus won’t be locked in until closer to the holiday, but you can expect plenty of locations both on the Strip and in Downtown Las Vegas to feature turkey as an entree. Last Thanksgiving, that included a Diestel Farms turkey with all the trimmings at Bouchon inside The Venetian and a three-course turkey dinner at Water Grill in the Forum Shops, and most of those Strip dining rooms roll out something similar again each November. Reservations fill up fast, so it’s worth booking sooner rather than later.

Christmas: Holiday Lights, Vegas-Style

Las Vegas has that “see it from space” quality (The Las Vegas Strip is considered one of the brightest places on the planet) so it should be no surprise that holiday lights displays are also crafted in an outsize way and with a touch of Vegas flair, much like the city’s other only-in-Vegas attractions worth doing at least once. This Christmas season, you can pay a visit to some of the most sparkling sights all across the city. Some longtime favorites include the uniquely deserty Ethel M Cactus Garden lights display, now in its 33rd year and a family favorite, where the local chocolatier adorns succulents with shimmering lights – visit EthelM.com for up-to-date holiday cactus garden information! Also, delight in the drive-thru Glittering Lights at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, which features an eye-popping 6 million-plus LEDs for holiday cheer. Regardless of where you are in town, however, you can make merry any weekend in late November through December, as the entire city gets fully into the holiday spirit.

Glittering Lights Just Got Even Bigger at Las Vegas Motor Speedway

The drive-through course now stretches three miles, longer than it used to run, with those 6 million-plus lights spread across roughly 750 individual displays. Las Vegas Motor Speedway shuts down its regular racing operation for about six weeks every winter and turns the whole property into a course instead, so you never have to leave the car. That sounds lazy until you remember it’s late December and somebody’s toddler fell asleep twenty minutes in anyway.

Ethel M’s Holiday Cactus Garden Runs on Real Chocolate Money

Ethel M’s Holiday Cactus Garden sits behind an actual working chocolate factory in Henderson, and you can tour the factory floor before or after you look at the lights. The three-acre display returns for its 33rd year this November, one of the valley’s longest-running holiday traditions, and it’s grown to more than a million lights strung across the succulents. Wander the paths slow. There’s no rush, and the smell of chocolate drifting out from the factory doors makes it hard to leave without a box of turtles anyway. Ethel M’s own site keeps a running list of hours if you want to time a visit around sunset.

The Bellagio Conservatory & Botanical Gardens Goes All In for the Holidays

The Bellagio Conservatory & Botanical Gardens turns its atrium into a free winter wonderland every December, no ticket or reservation required. This year’s theme leans into a Victorian train motif, with a 42-foot tree wrapped in roughly 7,000 ornaments standing watch over 28,000 fresh poinsettias and another 25,000 preserved roses and carnations, all arranged into the kind of dazzling displays that look like they took a small army to build. It basically did. Around 110,000 lights fill out the rest of the space, and it’s one of the Strip’s few genuinely free attractions that doesn’t feel like it. Between the scent of fresh flowers and the holiday music piped through the atrium, it’s about as much festive cheer as you can pack into one room. Full display details show up each season on SpotlightVegas.

Bellagio Hotel’s Garden Table Is the Best Seat for the Show

Bellagio Hotel’s Garden Table restaurant looks straight out over the Conservatory floor, and the kitchen serves brunch with a view most restaurants on the Strip can’t match. Its own decor changes right along with whatever’s blooming below, five times a year, so a December reservation looks nothing like an April one. It’s delicious food with a front-row seat to the Conservatory, worth booking on its own merits.

Local Charities Get Their Own Holiday Spotlight

Local charities in Las Vegas get a real financial boost every December, and nowhere more than at Magical Forest.

Opportunity Village Turns a Theme Park Into a Fundraiser

Opportunity Village runs Magical Forest every winter, and the whole thing exists to fund the nonprofit’s programs, not just to sell tickets. Unlimited rides, mini golf, a lit-up walking path, the Forest Express train circling the grounds, and a Holiday Shoppe stocked with ornaments and gifts keep the entire family busy having fun for a full evening. There’s a beer garden for the adults and food trucks for everyone else, plus regular visits from Santa Claus if the kids haven’t already handed over their wish list. Every dollar from admission and concessions goes straight back into Opportunity Village, a Las Vegas nonprofit that’s provided jobs, housing and community programs for people with intellectual disabilities since 1954. The park just wrapped its 33rd year, and Opportunity Village reported record crowds. It’s a family-friendly experience, about as close as Vegas gets to one in December, wristbands included.

More Places to Chase Las Vegas Christmas Lights and Holiday Activities

Las Vegas transforms well beyond the Strip once the holidays hit, and its holiday displays and Las Vegas Christmas lights aren’t confined to the corridor everyone already knows about. If you plan to spend Christmas in Las Vegas this year, here’s where the rest of the entertainment capital packs in its own holiday adventure.

Head downtown and the Fremont Street Experience puts up its own towering Christmas tree each year, this season’s version standing around 40 feet under the Viva Vision canopy, with festive decorations strung across the whole plaza. The block packs a night’s worth of Christmas activities into a one-night holiday village called Neon Nights & Holiday Lights in mid-December, complete with a tree lighting and a menorah lighting for Hanukkah. Locals treat it as a warm-up before dinner reservations somewhere else entirely.

Enchant Christmas takes over Las Vegas Ballpark for its sixth straight season, wrapping the stadium in what organizers call the world’s largest Christmas light maze, plus a separate ice skating trail for anyone who’d rather glide than walk through it. It’s one of the valley’s newer holiday attractions, an immersive experience built for slow wandering, not the drive-by kind you get at the Speedway. Give it at least two hours, more if there are kids along who want to stop at every photo spot.

Downtown Summerlin, the open-air shopping center on the west side of the valley, runs its own holiday parade every Friday and Saturday night through late December: festive floats, live entertainment, dancers, and fake fluffy snowflakes drifting over the crowd. Kids ride the open-air Jupiter Express train past the storefronts, and there’s a Santa Chalet nearby for photo opportunities once the ride ends. Skaters can also book time at Rock Rink, an outdoor rink running from mid-November clear into January, right in the middle of all that holiday shopping. Anyone chasing festive fun without leaving the valley could spend a whole evening right here.

Fontainebleau Las Vegas built the largest real ice rink on the Strip this year, a 7,500-square-foot sheet up on the third-floor pool deck they’re calling the Oasis Ice Rink. Vegas Golden Knights captain Mark Stone made a special appearance at last season’s tree lighting, which tells you the resort isn’t treating this as an afterthought. There’s a Nutcracker-on-Ice performance a few nights a week too, plus hot cocoa stands scattered around the deck for anyone whose fingers went numb five minutes into lacing up skates.

Over at the Cosmopolitan, the rink at Boulevard Pool pours holiday cocktails right at rinkside, in case falling on the ice goes better with a drink in hand. A few blocks north, the LINQ Promenade runs a free holiday light show off the High Roller every hour after dark, open nightly through late December, timed to holiday music loud enough to hear from the street.

Even resorts without a dedicated light show still join in. The Venetian Resort Las Vegas dresses up the Grand Canal Shoppes for holiday shopping under its painted blue sky, and Mandalay Bay Resort’s lobby gets its own tree and garland, even without a marquee attraction to match. Special holiday events pop up and disappear fast enough this time of year that it’s worth checking a local outlet like the Las Vegas Sun before locking in a specific date.

Las Vegas Holiday Shows Turn Into Some of the Most Spectacular Shows in Town

Las Vegas holiday shows fill theaters across the valley from Thanksgiving weekend through New Year’s, and more than a few of them count among the most spectacular shows the city puts on all year.

Nevada Ballet Theatre stages The Nutcracker at The Smith Center every December, typically running from around the middle of the month through the week after Christmas, with a full orchestra pulling in ticket buyers who might not otherwise set foot in a theater the rest of the year. The Las Vegas Philharmonic puts on its own holiday concert at the same venue, A Very Vegas Christmas, which just marked its 20th year and moved up to a 2,000-seat house to keep up with demand. Both are live performances worth booking early, since these Christmas shows tend to sell out well before Christmas week itself.

Over at The Orleans Showroom, A Charlie Brown Christmas: Live on Stage brings Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the rest of the gang to life for a run of December performances, aimed at families who grew up on the original TV special. Sinatra Live!, a tribute act built around Frank Sinatra’s catalog, plays year-round at Alexis Park’s Pegasus Showroom and leans harder into the holiday standards once December hits. If dinner theater is more your speed, Marriage Can Be Murder at the Rio turns a live comedic mystery into part of the meal itself, holidays or not.

Need an excuse for holiday shopping instead? Cowboy Christmas takes over the Las Vegas Convention Center’s South Hall every December alongside the National Finals Rodeo, with more than 375 artisan vendors selling handmade leather goods, jewelry and Western wear, paired with food trucks slinging some of the best food you’ll find at a trade show, which admittedly isn’t a high bar, but still holds up, and it’s all set in a city that’s also reinvented itself as a destination for stylish, retro-inspired Las Vegas weddings and elopements. Bass Pro Shops runs its own Santa’s Wonderland during the same stretch, with free photos with Santa Claus for anyone whose kids still believe enough to hand over a wish list — and plenty of chances for parents to capture their own best vacation photos from Vegas and beyond.

That’s what holidays in Las Vegas actually look like once you get past the same five photos everyone already has of the Strip.

New Year’s Eve: Take a Trip to ‘Mars’

Spending a New Year’s Eve watching a ball drop sounds pretty so-so, so why not take the trip to Vegas for the ultimate place to celebrate 2027 — or save this itinerary for winter and spend late summer on one of two quick last-minute escapes to Cabo or Sedona? And, doing yourself one better, why not celebrate with the Backstreet Boys, the multi-platinum pop group bringing their biggest hits to the massive wraparound screen at Sphere? If it seems like you’ve answered your own questions, then feel free to book now (tickets went on sale August 21), but if you’re still undecided: the group is playing a three-night run on Dec. 31 and Jan. 1 and 2, ringing in 2027 inside the most technologically over-the-top venue on the Strip. Sphere’s 16K wraparound screen turns even a greatest-hits set into a full sensory experience, floor seats to nosebleeds alike – either way, you’re in for a celebratory treat from this boy-band institution, with the night capping off the kind of weekend that might end with a cocktail at the Amex Sidecar Lounge at Harry Reid International Airport.

Book the Bellagio Conservatory or Magical Forest earlier in the trip, then close the whole thing out at the Sphere.

So make those plans and don’t … “drop the ball.”