In depth · Christmas & New Year
Christmas in Venice: lights on the water, La Fenice and the New Year
In winter Venice is quieter, the light is low and silver on the lagoon, and the city keeps its music for Christmas. We add other 2026 dates as soon as the organisers publish them.
Updated October 2026
Music at La Fenice
La Fenice’s December includes the Les Étoiles ballet gala on 12 and 13 December 2026, and its New Year’s Concert runs from 29 December 2026 to 1 January 2027. Book early on the theatre’s own website.
Lights on the water
In Advent, lights are strung over the canals of Murano and the city’s campi, and reflected in the water at dusk. Take the waterbus to Murano in the late afternoon and walk the Fondamenta dei Vetrai as the lights come on.
La Vigilia: Christmas Eve, by the sea
In much of Italy, and above all in the south, the great meal is la Vigilia, the dinner of Christmas Eve, and by tradition it has no meat. The antipasti come from the sea: marinated anchovies, octopus salad, smoked salmon and baccalà fritto, fried salt cod.
Then a pasta: spaghetti alle vongole, with clams, garlic, olive oil and parsley, or pasta with tuna, eel or a seafood ragù. Then a whole roast fish, a sea bream or a sea bass. In the south the dish of the night is capitone, a large eel, fried or roasted.
Il pranzo di Natale: Christmas Day lunch
On Christmas Day, in the north above all, families sit down to a long lunch. In Emilia-Romagna it begins with tortellini in brodo, little hand-folded pasta filled with pork loin, prosciutto and Parmigiano, floating in a capon broth. Liguria serves its natalini in brodo; the south bakes lasagne, or in Sicily anelletti al forno, a baked timbale of ring-shaped pasta.
Then comes the bollito misto, boiled capon, beef, veal and cotechino sausage with salsa verde or mostarda, or a roast of veal, rabbit or lamb with rosemary and garlic.
Panettone, pandoro, torrone and struffoli
And then the dolci. Panettone, from Milan, is a tall domed bread, light and buttery, with raisins and candied citrus; pandoro, from Verona, is its golden, star-shaped cousin, without fruit and dusted with icing sugar. Torrone, almond and honey nougat, is the sweet of Cremona and of the south, and in Naples no Christmas passes without struffoli, little balls of fried dough glazed in honey and scattered with sprinkles and candied fruit.
Our advice: buy your panettone from a pasticceria that bakes its own; the difference is worth every euro.
Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve
Book Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve dinners early, on the restaurants’ and hotels’ own websites: the dining rooms of the Gritti, the St. Regis and the Danieli, Quadri above the piazza, or Glam in Palazzo Venart. Note that the Hotel Cipriani is closed until 1 June 2027.
And then, Carnival
The 2027 Carnevale di Venezia runs from 23 January to 9 February, according to its official site.
Questions and answers
When is La Fenice’s New Year’s Concert?
From 29 December 2026 to 1 January 2027; tickets on teatrolafenice.it.
When is Carnival 2027?
From 23 January to 9 February 2027.
What do Italians eat on Christmas Eve?
La Vigilia is traditionally meatless: seafood antipasti, a pasta such as spaghetti alle vongole and a whole roast fish, with capitone, eel, in the south.
Dates from teatrolafenice.it and carnevale.venezia.it (checked 27 October 2026). We add other 2026 Christmas dates as soon as the organisers publish them.