Guide to the 2025 EPCOT Festival of the Holidays

The 2025 EPCOT International Festival of the Holidays runs from November 28 to December 30, 2025. What’s returning? What’s new? What can you do? One thing to know up front: many activities in this popular event are included with the price of your Disney World ticket. Tap any item in the list to jump straight ahead, or just keep reading to learn about the whole shebang!

• Festival of the Holidays Entertainment
• Festival of the Holidays Family Fun
• Holiday Kitchens
• Merch!
• Festival of the Holidays Tips and FAQ

Festival of the Holidays Entertainment

There’s plenty of entertainment at the Festival; it would be hard to see everything in one day. The Candlelight Processional keeps a fixed schedule; for other acts, check the My Disney Experience app for times. TouringPlans subscribers can find the most efficient itinerary by adding these shows to custom plans.

Candlelight Processional

The Candlelight Processional is performed every evening during the Festival of the Holidays. The 40-minute show tells the story of Christmas with a massed choir, an orchestra, and a celebrity narrator.

Vocalists are drawn from youth choirs and Cast Members, and the Voices of Liberty are also featured. The music, which includes some audience-participation Christmas standards, is interwoven with the narrator’s retelling and trumpet fanfares. This year’s schedule hasn’t been released yet; it’s often available in late September or early October.

The Candlelight Processional has three shows daily at 5:00 pm, 6:45 pm, and 8:15 pm in the America Gardens Theater. It’s free and there is standby seating for every performance. But it’s also popular, so standby lines are long and form early. By far the easiest way to get a seat is to book a dining package. You’ll get a meal and a ticket; the extra cost for a Candlelight Processional Dining Package is about $20 per adult and $10 per child compared to a regular meal in the same restaurant. In 2025, we expect about 15 restaurants at EPCOT to offer Candlelight Processional Dining Packages.

You can see last year’s lineup and dining package prices here for planning purposes: 2024 Candlelight Processional Schedule and Dining Packages. We’ll update as soon as this year’s schedule and details are out!

JOYFUL!

Joyful! A Celebration of the Season is an ensemble performance with Gospel, R&B, and holiday songs celebrating Christmas and Kwanzaa. Live instruments and powerful voices create a truly joyful sound. You’ll find several shows a day at the CommuniCore Plaza Stage.

Holiday Storytellers

As you stroll the World Showcase, many Pavilions host Holiday Storytellers. These shows and their narrators focus on the holiday traditions of a specific region or culture. Some are a quick tour of regional customs; others recount a country’s seasonal tales.

Look for Storytellers in these locations:

• • Mexico Pavilion – Las Posadas Celebration
  • Norway Pavilion – A Mischievous Magical Barn Santa
  • China Pavilion – Chinese Lion Dancer
  • Italy Pavilion – La Befana
  • Japan Pavilion – Daruma Storyteller
  • Between the Morocco and France Pavilions – Hanukkah Storyteller
  • France Pavilion – Père Noël
  • United Kingdom Pavilion – Father Christmas
  • Canada Pavilion – Canadian Holiday Voyageurs

Shows are typically 15-25 minutes, and start times are staggered. If you want to catch them all, you may find that you need to do a bit of zig-zagging – and you still might need more than one day. But even if there’s no performance when you’re there, you’ll find most areas have a narrative plaque.

Voices of Liberty

Throughout the year, the a cappella group Voices of Liberty performs patriotic standards in the rotunda of the American Adventure. For the Festival of the Holidays, they turn their voices to a seasonal repertoire. Dressed in Victorian finery, you’ll find them singing out a lineup that ranges from classic carols to non-denominational holiday tunes. It will definitely put you in the holiday spirit.

Festival of the Holidays Family Fun

Throughout your visit, you’ll find activities that can be enjoyed at any time, no schedule required. That starts with decor – the park is dressed up for the holidays! Throughout the parks, you’ll find Christmas trees, bunting, and festive lights. At EPCOT, some of our favorite elements are the holiday-themed topiaries. And as you go around the World Showcase, you’ll find decorations that coordinate with countries.

As you pass from the World Showcase to the Imagination Pavilion, seasonal scents may tickle your nose. The Festive Fragrances presented by Scentsy Snow Globe Garden was new in 2024, and although Disney hasn’t confirmed it, we expect it to return this year.

Activities at CommuniCore Hall

Disney hasn’t confirmed what the seasonal decor will be for Communicore Hall yet. But we wouldn’t be surprised to see a return of last year’s popular giant gingerbread Spaceship Earth. Made of handcrafted gingerbread triangles, it lights up and dances throughout the day just as Spaceship Earth does at night.

Olaf’s Holiday Tradition Expedition

Do you love a scavenger hunt? Buy an Olaf’s Holiday Tradition Expedition map for $9.99. Then keep your eyes peeled for Olaf to find regional traditions in each World Showcase Pavilion.

Sticker the map as you find the traditions, and turn in your completed map for a prize. No need to complete the activity in one day. In fact, no need to complete it at all! It turns out that the fee you pay for the map is mostly for the prize; you can collect it even if your group doesn’t have time to finish the hunt.

Meet Santa! (and other family photo opportunities)

If you’re not making your regular visit to the mall Santa because you’re on vacation, never fear. You can meet Santa at the Odyssey through December 24; look for times in the My Disney Experience app. But if Santa’s not your thing, there are plenty of other holiday photo opportunities.

Regular Meet & Greet characters will mostly wear their regular costumes. But many of them will celebrate the season with an accessory or two. Also look for PhotoPass photographers stationed near photogenic backdrops throughout the parks. Many of them will offer Magic Shots that add a bit of Disney fun to your pictures.

After Sunset

For Disney World’s 50th Anniversary, Spaceship Earth became a “Beacon of Magic” with special lighting effects at night. During the holidays these light shows turn the golf ball into a giant ornament once the sun goes down; it can be mesmerizing!

Over in the Land Pavilion, the Living With the Land attraction gets a holiday overlay. The greenhouses are strung with lights, turning the ride into Living With the Land – Glimmering Greenhouses. The decorations are there during the day, but as with most holiday lighting, they’re best enjoyed at night. Be prepared for longer lines once the sun goes down, or grab a Lightning Lane Multi-Pass reservation for 6 pm or later.

The Behind the Seeds tour through the greenhouses also gets a holiday overlay! Disney hasn’t announced that this special version of the tour will be returning yet, but it was popular, and we expect to see it. For the 6 and 7 pm tours only, it becomes Behind the Seeds: Glimmering Greenhouses.

Holiday Kitchens

Throughout the World Showcase, festive Holiday Kitchens will be serving a variety of savory and sweet dishes. New kitchens last year included the Experimental Prototype Cookies of Tomorrow and Favorites of Festivals Past, both at CommuniCore Hall. Some of our favorites from last year are below, and although this year’s menus aren’t out yet, you can tap here to see last year’s menus.

Expect to spend about $6-7 per dish or about $20 per booth. For drinks, beer runs about $6 and spirited cocktails between $12-15. Most Festival dishes qualify as a Disney Dining Plan Snack Credit; they’re often a great bang-for-the-credit way to spend them. Two to three savory dishes and a dessert are about the same amount of food as a Quick Service meal.

As the Festival rolls along, we’ll have blog articles with our recommendations for a budget sampler, a review of the Cookie Stroll (see below), the best drinks, and more. Tap here to see all our Holiday Kitchen coverage on the blog. If you prefer, you can follow along on our Instagram feed.

Holiday Kitchen Tips

➡ Lines will be shorter during the day. But even in the evenings, don’t be alarmed by a long line; they tend to move fast. If you’re short on time or lines are long, pick a few booths where everything looks good to minimize your waiting in line.

➡ If you’re planning on seriously snacking your way around, consider a cafeteria tray like this one. It makes it a lot easier to carry the small plates and cardboard boats, and it fits in a backpack. And if you’ve got a group, send a couple of people to hold down a table and one each to collect from several nearby booths. Look for good seating between the Imagination Pavilion and World Showcase, at Tangierine Cafe, and at the Odyssey.

➡ You’ll find allergen menus for the booths in the My Disney Experience app, and plant-based options are marked on the regular menus. But the booths aren’t full kitchens and can’t support high-level cross-contact mitigation. If you have allergies, especially ones that are severe or life-threatening, ask to speak with a Special Diets Trained Cast Member about your options at the Food & Wine Festival.

➡ Of course, we think our own Lines app is the best park assistant ever, but if you’re looking for a Festival app, here’s my favorite: Track Your Eats! An EPCOT Festival App for Your Phone. Make wishlists, plan your budget, and more.

Cookie Stroll

A fun foodie activity during the Festival is the Holiday Cookie Stroll. Purchase any five of the Cookie Stroll cookies and get a stamp in your Festival Passport. (Passports can be found at the park entrances.) When you have 5 stamps, bring your Passport to the Holiday Sweets & Treats booth for a prize. Our review of last year’s stroll is here: Review: 2024 Cookie Stroll at Festival of the Holidays – and Disney has already confirmed that the Coffee Mocha Cookie pictured above will be back for 2025.

Merchandise

Are you that person who feels like you didn’t go if you didn’t come back with a memento? Even if you’re not, we find that Disney World is a great place to check off everyone on your gift list. No Festival is complete without its branded merchandise.

Festival of the Holidays has a fairly minimal selection of Festival exclusives, probably because the parks and resorts are overflowing with holiday merchandise during this time. If Christmas is not your holiday, you’ll also find some items for Hanukkah and other cultures.

Festival of the Holidays Tips