2025 Epcot International Festival of the Holidays Guide

The Epcot International Festival of the Holidays runs from November 28th to December 30th in 2025. In simpler terms, it starts the day after Thanksgiving and continues through the day before New Year’s Eve. If you’re visiting Epcot during this time, you may enjoy participating in the festival. Like other festivals, you can participate as little or as much as you would like.

This year’s festival features the return of the Candlelight Processional, Joyful!, Glimmering Greenhouses, Holiday Storytellers, Olaf’s Holiday Scavenger Hunt, and much more! To help you plan, we’ve created this guide, dedicated solely to the 2025 Epcot International Festival of the Holidays. It features everything announced to date, along with tips for making the most of your time.

It’s also important to note that this particular festival is how Epcot celebrates the holiday season. Everything we discuss below is considered a holiday offering. For reference, Epcot hosts four festivals each year. The other three are the Festival of the Arts, the Flower and Garden Festival, and the Food and Wine Festival. So no matter when you visit, there will likely be a festival with seasonal offerings.

Okay, now that we’ve got the major details out of the way, it’s time to break things down. As always, we suggest picking out a few things of interest and incorporating them into your plans! Please note that this is a living guide that we update as things are confirmed. We’ll change the last updated date below when Disney makes new announcements between now and the start of the festival. Let’s get started!

Last Updated: July 30, 2025

2025 Festival of the Holidays Dates: November 28, 2025 to December 30, 2025

New at the 2025 Festival of the Holidays

So far, Disney has not announced any new items for this year’s Festival of the Holidays. Keep in mind that it’s still a little early. At the very least, we should see some new celebrity narrators for the Candlelight Processional. We’ll list any new items here in future updates.

2025 Holiday Kitchens

Disney notes that the final list of vendors will be announced at a future date. In their initial announcement, they stated to expect a blend of new offerings and returning favorites. We’ll list the holiday kitchens along with our menu guide as soon as we know more.

We anticipate a menu release in late October to early November. The 2024 holiday kitchen menus were released on November 14th.

Holiday Cookie Stroll

The Holiday Cookie Stroll returns in 2025. This activity requires you to pick up a festival passport and get it stamped when you purchase a qualifying cookie. It takes five cookies with corresponding stamps to complete. Once you’re finished, you can redeem the passport for a surprise at Holiday Sweets and Treats. While we don’t have the complete list of cookies yet, we do know the following one will return this year.

• Coffee-Mocha Cookie (topped with Coffee-infused Buttercream, Cocoa Nibbs, and Chocolate-covered Espresso Beans)

Candlelight Processional

The Candlelight Processional allows guests to hear a retelling of the stirring story of Christmas in the America Gardens Theater, which sits between the lagoon and the American Adventure. The performance includes a celebrity narrator, a massed choir, a 50-piece orchestra, herald trumpets, and the Voices of Liberty. One of the big draws of this event is waiting to see who the celebrity narrator will be during your visit. We anticipate that information being released sometime (hopefully) in October, with dining packages soon to follow. We’ll post the list here when it’s released, and touch on dining packages below.

Performance Times for 2025: 5:00 p.m., 6:45 p.m., and 8:15 p.m.

Each performance has a runtime of approximately 50 minutes. Remember, seating is first-come, first-served.

Candlelight Processional Dining Packages

As mentioned above, the celebrity narrators are a huge crowd draw for the Candlelight Processional. On certain evenings, guests will line up hours in advance in hopes of getting a good seat to see someone specific. The only way to secure designated seating and avoid the wait is to purchase a Candlelight Processional Dining Package. In a nutshell, the dining package allows guests to purchase a meal at select Epcot restaurants and receive guaranteed seating at a Candlelight Processional performance on the same day.

If you’re planning on enjoying a table service meal and seeing a performance, we think it’s a no-brainer. That said, so do many other guests, making it a highly coveted offering, depending on the popularity of the celebrity narrator. Dining package details are typically released about the same time as the celebrity narrators list. At that time, a reservation opening date will be announced.

Joyful

Joyful, a rhythm and blues choir, will perform this holiday season. This concert series celebrates the spirit of Christmas and Kwanzaa. Expect an upbeat mix of music, including gospel, jazz, and R&B. We’ve seen this group perform several times and think they are pretty incredible. It’s worth taking a little time to stop and enjoy their moving music.

Holiday Storytellers

One of the most interesting finds at the Festival of the Holidays is the special storytellers in most countries. As you tour the World Showcase, you’ll have the opportunity to see Holiday Storytellers sharing the festive traditions and history of the season per their respective country. These types of learning experiences are one of the things we love most about the World Showcase. Here is a list of who you might find:

• 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 

*These performers (some Santa’s) happen periodically throughout the day. Showtimes will be listed in the entertainment section of the My Disney Experience app.

Glimmering Greenhouses

Glimmering Greenhouses is a holiday overlay of Living with the Land, an attraction where guests take a narrated boat ride through Epcot’s greenhouses. This special “glow up” is only offered during the holiday season and is considered a must-do for most. As soon as you enter the greenhouses, you’ll see thousands of twinkling, colorful lights. We recommend riding this attraction during the day and then returning in the evening to get the full effect after sunset.

Olaf’s Holiday Scavenger Hunt

Every festival comes with a scavenger hunt, but only one comes with a scavenger hunt featuring Olaf. Olaf’s Holiday Scavenger Hunt returns in 2025, sending guests in search of 13 unique spots throughout Epcot.

You can purchase a map with stickers at select merchandise locations. Then, once you’ve found them all, redeem the map at a Creations Shop or World Traveler (International Gateway) for a gift! (Hint: We often do the scavenger hunts, and we always request our prize at the time of purchase so we don’t forget it later. The cast member will mark on your map that you’ve already received the prize if you opt to do this.)

Festival Merchandise

Unique merchandise is created yearly to celebrate the Epcot International Festival of the Holidays. These items can be found at select locations throughout the park. We’ll add a preview of what to expect here when Disney releases it.

Future Holiday Festival Dates

Disney announces each year’s festival dates a couple of months in advance. To provide some guidance for our readers, we keep a running tally of when the dates are announced, along with the previous year’s festival dates. See Epcot Festival Dates for more details.

More Planning

Resorts Gal specializes in Disney World Resorts, Characters, and Dining. Explore our resources, including our Disney World Resorts Guide. It provides an overview of everything you need to know about the Disney Resort Hotels. For dining, our Disney World Dining Guide is an excellent place to start. Our Disney World Transportation Guide is a wonderful resource for planning your routes. It’s one of our most popular resources. If you plan to meet characters in the parks, we have an updated list of Disney World Characters. It includes every available character meet-and-greet in the parks and where to find rare characters throughout the year. Lastly, our Disney Parks Guide provides a complete overview of all four theme parks and water parks.