In depth · Christmas & New Year
Christmas in Miami: Art Week, boat parades and New Year over Biscayne Bay
Miami’s festive season is all sunshine and spectacle. December opens with Art Week, boats strung with lights parade up the waterways, Cuban families gather for Nochebuena, and the year ends with fireworks over Biscayne Bay before the Three Kings march down Calle Ocho.
Updated October 2026
Art Week
The season begins with Miami Art Week, when Art Basel Miami Beach fills the Miami Beach Convention Center from 4 to 6 December 2026, with VIP days before, and satellite fairs, parties and installations spread from Wynwood and the Design District to the beach. Hotels fill early: book as soon as you can.
Boats in lights
Forty minutes up the coast, the Winterfest Boat Parade, now in its 55th year, sails on Saturday 12 December 2026 from 6pm, from the New River in Fort Lauderdale out along the Intracoastal Waterway, a procession of yachts dressed in lights that takes around two and a half hours to pass. Waterfront restaurants along the route book up weeks ahead.
Nochebuena and the Three Kings
For Miami’s Cuban families the great feast is Nochebuena, Christmas Eve, centred on a whole roast pork, black beans and rice and turrón, often followed by Midnight Mass. The season ends with Three Kings Day: the City of Miami’s Three Kings Parade, a tradition since 1970, brings floats, bands and the Magi down Calle Ocho in Little Havana on a Sunday in January.
New Year’s Eve
Downtown’s Bayfront Park hosts the city’s big New Year’s Eve celebration, with music and fireworks over Biscayne Bay, and in some years the Big Orange, Miami’s answer to the Times Square ball, climbs the side of the InterContinental hotel to strike midnight. Miami Beach celebrates with parties from the hotel terraces to the sand.
Our advice: for the fireworks without the crowd, book a dinner with a bay view in Brickell or on a yacht charter well ahead.
Questions and answers
When is Art Basel Miami Beach 2026?
From 4 to 6 December 2026 at the Miami Beach Convention Center.
When is the Winterfest Boat Parade 2026?
On Saturday 12 December 2026, from 6pm in Fort Lauderdale.
Where is the Three Kings Parade in Miami?
Along Calle Ocho in Little Havana, on a Sunday in January.
Join the conversation
Spent Christmas in Miami? Share your favourite party, boat parade or Nochebuena table.
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Dates are from the organisers’ and official tourism sites, read in October 2026. Where a 2026 date is not yet published we describe the tradition only. Check the official sites before you travel.