EPCOT's Festival of the Holidays Runs November 28 to December 30, With Ten World Showcase Storytellers and Olaf Hidden in 13 Spots
The 2025 EPCOT International Festival of the Holidays runs November 28 through December 30, opening the day after Thanksgiving. Disney has confirmed the Candlelight Processional's three nightly showtimes, ten World Showcase Storytellers, the returning Holiday Cookie Stroll, a Gingerbread Spaceship Earth in CommuniCore Hall, and the Glimmering Greenhouses overlay on Living with the Land.
The EPCOT International Festival of the Holidays has its 2025 dates: November 28 through December 30, opening the day after Thanksgiving and running to the day before New Year's Eve. Disney has now laid out the entertainment, the food and the activities, and the shape of the festival is familiar in the best way: the Candlelight Processional three times a night, ten World Showcase Storytellers, a cookie crawl, and Olaf hiding in thirteen places.
Key Details
- Dates: November 28 to December 30, 2025
- Where: EPCOT, across World Showcase, CommuniCore Hall, the Odyssey and The Land Pavilion
- Candlelight Processional: Nightly at 5 p.m., 6:45 p.m. and 8:15 p.m. at the America Gardens Theatre, roughly 50 minutes
- Included with admission: Storytellers, JOYFUL!, Santa greetings, the Gingerbread Spaceship Earth display and the Living with the Land overlay
- Costs extra: Holiday Kitchens food and drink, Cookie Stroll items, the Olaf scavenger hunt map, festival merchandise
Festival of the Holidays Dates and Timing
The festival keeps its usual footprint: it starts the day after Thanksgiving and runs through December 30, 2025. That is 33 days, and it covers the full holiday build-up: quiet early-December weekdays, the crowded stretch from about December 20 onward, and the week between Christmas and New Year's. Theme park tickets and resort lodging for those dates are already bookable, which matters more here than at most festivals because the holiday weeks are the single busiest period of the Walt Disney World year.
Worth knowing if you are planning around it: the festival ends on the 30th, so New Year's Eve at EPCOT is not a Festival of the Holidays night. The Holiday Kitchens, the Storytellers and the Candlelight Processional all wrap the day before.
Candlelight Processional Returns to America Gardens Theatre
Each evening of the festival, the America Gardens Theatre hosts the Candlelight Processional, a retelling of the nativity story built around holiday hymns. The show pairs a celebrity narrator with a large live orchestra, herald trumpets and massed voices: the Voices of Liberty, the Disney Cast Choir and local community choirs.
The narrators are the draw. Past years have brought Josh Gad, Neil Patrick Harris and Jodi Benson to the stage, and this year's line-up mixes returning favourites with new names. Performances run at 5 p.m., 6:45 p.m. and 8:15 p.m. and last about 50 minutes.
Seating is first-come, first-served and it fills: on a night with a popular narrator, the standby queue can start forming in the middle of the afternoon. The alternative is a Candlelight Processional Dining Package, which pairs a meal at a participating EPCOT restaurant with a guaranteed seat at a same-day performance. If Candlelight is the reason you are visiting in December, that is the reservation to chase.
Ten World Showcase Storytellers, Country by Country
The Storytellers are the quiet heart of this festival, and they are free with park admission. Each pavilion presents a short performance about how its country marks the season, and the 2025 roster covers ten of them:
- Mexico Pavilion: Las Posadas Celebration
- Norway Pavilion: A Mischievous Magical Barn Santa
- China Pavilion: Chinese Lion Dancer and Si-Zhu Trio
- Germany Pavilion: Adventskalender
- 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
Sets repeat frequently through the day rather than running once, so you can pick them up as you walk the promenade. Showtimes are confirmed daily in the My Disney Experience app, and they do shift. Check the day you go rather than planning off a week-old schedule.
JOYFUL! A Celebration of the Season
JOYFUL! A Celebration of the Season is the festival's concert series celebrating Christmas and Kwanzaa, performed by the Central Florida group D'Vine Voices. The set moves between gospel, jazz and R&B, mixing familiar carols with rearranged versions, and it is a genuine live-vocal showcase rather than a walk-past. Showtimes are in the My Disney Experience app.
Holiday Kitchens, the Cookie Stroll and the Festival Passport
The Holiday Kitchens are standalone booths built around seasonal recipes from around the world, and they are the reason a lot of guests treat this festival as a grazing day rather than a sit-down one. The complete vendor list arrives closer to opening, and Disney says 2025 will blend new dishes with returning favourites; the full menu goes into the Festival of the Holidays Foodie Guide.
The Holiday Cookie Stroll returns as well, and it is the best-value scavenger activity on the festival grounds. Eligible cookies are flagged with a cookie icon in the Foodie Guide. Buy any five from the official locations, collect the matching stamps in your Festival Passport, and redeem them at Holiday Sweets and Treats for a surprise. Among the returning items is the Coffee-Mocha Cookie, topped with coffee-infused buttercream, cocoa nibs and chocolate-covered espresso beans.
CommuniCore Hall Becomes the Indoor Holiday Hub
CommuniCore Hall (the air-conditioned event building that opened as part of EPCOT's World Celebration transformation) does the heavy lifting for the indoor side of this festival. Santa Claus greets guests there, giving World Showcase's Père Noël and Father Christmas a third counterpart under a roof.
The building also holds a Gingerbread Spaceship Earth display, a sugar-built version of the park's icon and one of the festival's better photo stops, plus the Celebration Countdown presented by CITIZEN, a light show that runs every 15 minutes.
For cookies with an EPCOT accent, Experimental Prototype Cookies of Tomorrow (a name that earns its groan) serves the Prototype Cookie, a sugar cookie with orange cranberry icing and dark chocolate, and a Ginger-Molasses Cookie with cream cheese icing, alongside a Gingerbread Milk Shake and hot cocoa by Joffrey's.
Santa Goofy, Glittering Grove and Holiday Hearth at the Odyssey
The Odyssey (the building between World Showcase and World Discovery that Disney reopens for festival use) hosts Glittering Grove presented by Balsam Hill, a display of faux trees dressed in lights and ornaments and set up explicitly as a photo location. Santa Goofy greets nearby.
The Holiday Hearth Desserts stand handles the sweets here, with Red Velvet Cake Pops, Reindeer Chow made with M&M'S Milk Chocolate Candies Holiday Blend, and a Cocoa Peppermint Warmer, hot cocoa by Joffrey's with peppermint schnapps for guests 21 and over.
Père Noël, Barn Santa and Where to Find Santa at EPCOT
There is no single Santa at EPCOT during the festival, which is rather the point of a park built around World Showcase. Père Noël appears in the France Pavilion, where he tells the story of Babette and her Christmas letter. Barn Santa (the Norwegian nisse, mischievous by tradition) turns up in the Norway Pavilion. Father Christmas holds court in the United Kingdom Pavilion. And Santa Claus himself is in CommuniCore Hall.
Scentsy's Festive Fragrances Returns for a Second Year
Back for its second year, Festive Fragrances presented by Scentsy sets up along the walkway between the Imagination! pavilion and World Showcase as a garden of holiday ornaments carrying seasonal scents. The 2025 line-up includes Christmas Cottage, Sleigh Ride, Silver Bells and Perfect Peppermint. It is a small thing, and it is also the only stop on this festival that works with your eyes shut.
Olaf's Holiday Tradition Expedition Hides in 13 Spots
The festival's scavenger hunt is back: Olaf's Holiday Tradition Expedition sends guests to find Olaf in 13 different spots around EPCOT, each tied to a holiday tradition he has discovered in that pavilion. Buy the map and stickers at select festival merchandise locations, work your way around, then redeem the completed map at Creations Shop or World Traveler at International Gateway for a prize.
It is a reliable way to get children to walk the full World Showcase loop without complaint, and because both redemption points sit at opposite ends of the park, it can be finished on either exit.
Living with the Land Becomes the Glimmering Greenhouses
The one attraction overlay of the festival is also its most charming. Living with the Land in The Land Pavilion becomes the Glimmering Greenhouses, with Christmas lights and decor strung through the growing houses and a holiday-themed narration replacing the usual script.
The ride still does what it always does (a slow boat past the real hydroponic and aquaculture research that Walt Disney World's plant scientists run for the resort's kitchens), but with the greenhouse glass reflecting a few thousand bulbs back at you. It is one of the few EPCOT attractions that improves after dark, and during the festival it is worth timing your ride for the evening.
Festival of the Holidays Merchandise: Figment Leads the Line
Figment fronts the 2025 merchandise collection, which is the correct decision and one Disney has made repeatedly since the purple dragon's festival artwork became a reliable seller. Three items lead the preview:
Holiday Sweater Ear Headband, inspired by Figment's festival sweater, with a removable bow
Festival of the Holidays Figment Bag, Figment in his cozy sweater
Festival of the Holidays Figment Ornament, a dated keepsake for the tree
Festival merchandise typically appears at Creations Shop, World Traveler at International Gateway and the pop-up festival stands, and the ornaments in particular tend to sell through before the festival ends.
What to Book Now, and What to Leave Until You Arrive
Almost all of this festival is included with park admission: the Storytellers, JOYFUL!, the Santa greetings, the Gingerbread Spaceship Earth, Glittering Grove, the Scentsy garden and the Glimmering Greenhouses overlay all cost nothing beyond your ticket. That leaves two things worth planning ahead for.
The first is the Candlelight Processional Dining Package, because a guaranteed seat is the difference between a 50-minute show and a three-hour afternoon spent holding a spot in the standby line. The second is your park day itself: with the festival ending December 30, the last week is both the most atmospheric and the most crowded stretch of the year at EPCOT. Everything else (the cookies, the passport stamps, the Olaf map) you can pick up on the day.