2022 Epcot Festival of the Holidays Info & Tips

Epcot International Festival of the Holidays features Christmas entertainment around World Showcase, running November 25 until December 30, 2022 at Walt Disney World. This event guide offers tips for Candlelight Processional, Santas, and other Storytellers during this seasonal celebration.

Of course, one thing that would never go missing from an Epcot festival is the food. We’ve covered that extensively in our Food Guide to the Epcot International Festival of the Holidays (and our individual booth reviews), so we aren’t going to spend too much time rehashing that here. Starting only a week after Epcot’s Food & Wine Festival ends, many of the food booths from that event are recycled for Festival of the Holidays, albeit with new menus.

Consequently, it’s easy to view this seasonal event as an extension of the popular fall Food & Wine event at Epcot, simply rebranded for Christmas. Some Walt Disney World fans joke that the other seasonal events are all “Epcot Food & Wine Festival Lite.” They’re not wrong. However, they’re also not totally right…

The Epcot International Festival of the Holidays is about so much more than eating, and if you focus solely on the food, you’re missing the heart of the event. There is a ton to enjoy during the Epcot International Festival of the Holidays–with or without food.

Let’s take a look at how Epcot will be celebrating Christmas 2022…

Holiday Storytellers — These international storytellers share winter traditions from their native countries and (in a few cases) religions. In the European countries, these are mostly versions of Santa Claus. In addition to the Santas, representatives at the American Adventure describe the celebrations of Kwanzaa and Hanukkah. In other countries, different traditions are recounted, usually with an emphasis on entertaining performances.

The Storytellers can be hit or miss, and whether you want to spend the time seeing listening to their stories will depend upon your personal preferences. If you are on the fence, we’d recommend starting your tour around the World Showcase in Mexico and continuing to Norway second as the most engaging Storytellers are near the beginning of the tour that way. If you don’t enjoy those countries’ Storytellers, chances are that you won’t enjoy any of the rest. (For our Holiday Storytellers at Epcot Tips, click here.)

Candlelight Processional — A retelling of the Christmas story with a celebrity narrator, mass choir performing seasonal melodies, and a 50-piece live orchestra. If last year’s schedule is any indication, Candlelight Processional will run nightly from Thanksgiving through December 30 (in which case, it’d kick off the night before the rest of the event), with performances at at 5:00, 6:45, and 8:00 p.m. You can find the celebrity narrators for each night by clicking here (opens in new tab).

One tip for Candlelight Processional is to book a dinner package if you’re visiting when one of the popular narrators is in town. They’re not too much of a premium if you were already planning on eating a table service meal, and will save you tons of time. We were there for the second night of Neil Patrick Harris’ run a couple of years ago, and we saw people waiting in line FOUR HOURS before the show. (For more info on Candlelight Processional, click here.)

Chip and Dale’s Christmas Tree Spree – Naturally, there’s a paid scavenger hunt, as is the case with other festivals at Epcot. For the holidays, it’s Chip and Dale’s Christmas Tree Spree, which is akin to the Figment and Ratatouille ones during other festivals at Epcot. Chip and Dale are collecting ornaments for their Christmas tree, and you go around looking for them as they gather ornaments from holiday decorations in each World Showcase pavilion. Once finished, you receive a festive ‘reward.’

Now, here’s how we’d approach a day at the Epcot International Festival of the Holidays…

Strategy, Tips & Itinerary

With all of that out of the way, our planning recommendation for the Epcot International Festival of the Holidays is pretty simple. We’d recommend rope-dropping the park (see our morning strategy for Epcot here), and doing as much as possible in Future World before 1 p.m.

Around then, bounce to World Showcase, and grab the Turkey Poutine from Refreshment Port before continuing on with your schedule of Holiday Storytellers. In between these performances, make some time to grab snacks at the various Holiday Kitchens, and schedule time for a few attractions, as well. (Mid-afternoon would be a great time for a Frozen Ever After FastPass+.)

Our rationale for doing actual attractions in addition to the Holiday Storytellers is that all of the Storytellers perform outside, with zero shade. Moreover, all of the lines for the Holiday Kitchen are outdoors, in unshaded areas. Ditto the tables for the food. Are you spotting a trend yet?

Even on a November or December afternoon, it can be in the 80s at Walt Disney World. If you do happen to get lucky with more favorable temperatures, you still have to deal with that Florida sunshine. The weather this time of year is delightful, but the potential for getting sunburnt doesn’t go away just because the temperature drops below 70 degrees.

The good news is that sunset occurs around 5 p.m. this time of year, so you can save a lot of your Holiday Storyteller and snacking experiences until around that time (note that some Storytellers end early, so make note of show schedules in advance).

The Holiday Kitchens all close at 8 p.m., so you’ll definitely want to grab the last of your snacks by that cut-off point. We’d recommend grabbing a surplus of items and grabbing a viewing spot for the fireworks.

Alternatively, you might opt for the last showing of Candlelight Processional (that’s the one we’d recommend attending) at 8:15 p.m., in which case you’ll want to line up before 8 p.m. to watch that–or just hang out in the American Adventure courtyard and enjoy the performances from afar.

It is possible to do the Epcot International Festival of the Holidays entertainment in addition to regular Epcot attractions. However, as we note in our 1-Day Epcot Ideal Day Plan, the park is already pretty much a 2-day park, and doing the above as your second day at Epcot just makes things so much easier, and will allow you to have a much slower pace.

That’s what we recommend, and usually when we visit Epcot around Christmas-time, it’s primarily to enjoy the holiday offerings. We’ll also do some regular rides and shows if we have time, but there are so many seasonal offerings that they can easily take up the whole day (or, at least the entire afternoon and evening).

Epcot Holiday Kitchens

As we noted earlier in the post, our separate Food Guide to the Epcot International Festival of the Holidays covers everything you need to know about what to eat (and what not to eat) at this event. Accordingly, all we’re going to cover here menus and our rankings of the various Holiday Kitchens (ordered from best to worst):

1. Yukon (Canada) Holiday Kitchen
2. American Holiday Table Kitchen
3. Sapphire (Morocco) Holiday Kitchen
4. Le Marché De Noël (France) Holiday Kitchen
5. Shanghai (China) Holiday Kitchen
6. Bavaria (Germany) Holiday Kitchen
7. Tuscany (Italy) Holiday Kitchen
8. Feast of the Three Kings Holiday Kitchen
9. L’Chaim Holiday Kitchen
10. Holiday Sweets & Treats Kitchen
11. Las Posadas (Mexico) Holiday Kitchen
12. Shi Wasu (Japan) Holiday Kitchen

Each one of those links above opens a new window with our full review of each Holiday Kitchen.

Don’t feel bad about gorging yourself at these booths. You’ll be learning about holiday culinary customs in other cultures as you graze, so the argument could be made that you’re doing all this eating to learn. The way we see it, we pretty much have to try all of these snacks. It is our responsibility as citizens of the world. 😉

For comprehensive tips for planning your Christmas-time trip to Walt Disney World, check out our Ultimate Guide to Christmas at Walt Disney World. For Walt Disney World trip planning tips and comprehensive advice, make sure to read our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide and related articles.

YOUR THOUGHTS…

Do you have any favorite things from Epcot International Festival of the Holidays/Holidays Around the World at Epcot? Which Holiday Storyteller is your favorite? Do you enjoy a particular Candlelight Processional narrator? Thoughts on the Peace on Earth tag? Any questions? Hearing from you is half the fun, so please share your thoughts in the comments!