Christmas in the North York Moors, 2026

The dates at a glance

• 12 November to 3 January: A Dickens of a Christmas at Castle Howard (house from £24 adult, gardens only from £15, booking essential)
• 12 November to 21 December: York Christmas Market, St Nicholas Fair, closed Tuesdays this year
• 12 November to 20 December: Scarborough Lights; free installations at the harbour, Peasholm Island and the castle from 14 November, drone show over the castle 19 to 23 November, Santa arriving by boat at the harbour slipway at 11am on 15 November
• 13 to 15 November: Whitby Christmas Festival, Marina Front car park (Friday 5 to 8, Saturday 10 to 8, Sunday 10 to 4)
• 19 November to 20 December, Thursday to Sunday: Nature's Noel at Nunnington Hall (National Trust)
• 21 November: Malton St Clement's Festival, Market Place, free
• 25 November to 1 December: Mathewsons December auction viewing week, Pickering (sale 2 to 4 December)
• 28 November: Pickering Christmas lights switch-on, Market Place, 2 to 5.30, lights on 4.15
• 28 and 29 November: Ryedale Folk Museum Christmas shopping weekend, Hutton-le-Hole, then closed until March
• 28 November to 24 December: NYMR Santa Express from Pickering, selected dates
• Early December: real Christmas trees at Dalby Forest visitor centre (2026 dates not yet posted; last year 29 November to 14 December)
• Early December to early January: Robin Hood and the Babes in the Wood, Scarborough Spa (opening night given as 4 or 5 December; check when booking)
• 5 December: Thornton-le-Dale Christmas lights switch-on, Village Hall, 4.30 to 8.30
• 5 December: Whitby Krampus Run
• 5 to 13 December: Treasure Island pantomime, Helmsley Arts Centre
• 5 to 31 December: Puss in Boots, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough
• 13 December: Beverley Festival of Christmas
• 26 December: Whitby Lions Boxing Day Dip, from the Bandstand, registration from 10am (last year's pattern; 2026 listing not yet posted)
• 1 January 2027: Scarborough Lions New Year's Day Dip, foreshore, 12.30

Not yet announced when this page was checked: the Helmsley and Kirkbymoorside switch-ons (last year 28 and 29 November), the Whitby switch-on time, the Krampus route, Scarborough Sparkle, the Pickering Christmas Festival at the Showground, Malton's Christmas market, Flamingo Land's Christmas prices, the NYMR's Whitby winter trains between Christmas and New Year, and the festive bus timetables. We add them as they appear.

Pickering and the Santa Express

The North Yorkshire Moors Railway's Santa Express is the Moors' best-known Christmas day out and the 2026 details are published. It runs from Pickering on 28 and 29 November, 5, 6, 12, 13, 19 and 20 December, and 22, 23 and 24 December, four departures a day at 10.30, 12.00, 13.30 and 15.00, an hour's round trip to Levisham and back; all departures are from Pickering. Prices are frozen at 2025 levels and are the same for adults and children: £29.50 on the November dates, £34.50 on 5 to 13 December, £39.50 from 19 December, carers £17.50, plus a £1.50 booking fee. Santa comes to every family at their seat, each child gets a gingerbread-man plush and a book, and the station has games, a letter-to-Santa post and a Christmas shop. Searchers still call them Santa Specials; NYMR now calls it the Santa Express. Book on nymr.co.uk.

Around it NYMR runs a Tinsel Tipple for over-14s on 28 November and 12, 22 and 23 December (5pm and 6.30pm, £35), an over-16s Bloody Merry Christmas evening on 5 and 19 December (6.30pm, £35), Christmas lunch on the Pullman to Goathland (£101.50), Christmas afternoon teas on Thursdays from 26 November to 17 December (£85), winter fish-and-chip trains on dates from 24 November to 3 January (from £110 for a table of two), and short winter breaks in the Goathland camping coach and the Grosmont station house. The ordinary timetable ends on 1 November. Last year steam trains ran daily to Whitby from 27 December to 4 January; the 2026 dates are not announced yet. Pickering station is on Park Street, YO18 7AJ; parking is £7 all day or £2 an hour, and Blue Badge holders are not exempt.

Pickering's lights go on in the Market Place on Saturday 28 November, 2pm to 5.30pm: a magician, St Joseph's choir, Stape Silver Band, Santa arriving and the lights on at 4.15, then the Tuneless Choir. Pickering Castle closes for the winter from early November (check English Heritage) and Beck Isle Museum from 1 November, so a December visit is the railway, the shops and the church with its medieval wall paintings. The Kirk Theatre's pantomime is Sleeping Beauty in January. The Christmas Festival at the Showground, new last year, has no 2026 dates yet.

Thornton-le-Dale

The village lights switch-on is Saturday 5 December, 4.30 to 8.30pm at the Village Hall, with Santa, music, mulled wine, food and stalls; last year's evening was free, and the stalls and donations pay for the 4,000 lamps. The village pubs serve Christmas Day lunch and need booking. Mathewsons' museum and shop are open 9 to 4 daily; the December auction is 2 to 4 December with the viewing week from 25 November. Our sister site has the full Christmas in Thornton-le-Dale guide, and the Bangers & Cash auction dates page covers the December sale.

Whitby and the coast

Whitby's Christmas Festival is 13 to 15 November at the Marina Front car park on Langborne Road, Friday 5 to 8, Saturday 10 to 8, Sunday 10 to 4, with a hot chocolate festival alongside. The lights switch-on and a fireworks display are part of the festival weekend; the times have not been announced. The Krampus Run is Saturday 5 December: horned, fur-clad figures parade through the town, in past years from the Bandstand along Pier Road to the Whalebones from about midday, with the Wyld Hunt the next day; the 2026 route and time are not yet published. It is loud and crowded, and small children may find the costumes frightening. The Whitby Pavilion has a touring Pinocchio pantomime on 4 and 5 December. The Captain Cook Museum closes from December until February half term, and Whitby Abbey's winter hours and Christmas closures are in the English Heritage booking calendar. On Boxing Day the Whitby Lions Dip gathers at the Bandstand, registration from 10am, fancy dress judging at 10.30 and everyone into the sea straight after, £10; 2025 was the club's fiftieth dip and the 2026 listing is not yet up.

Scarborough's season is Scarborough Lights from 12 November to 20 December: free installations at the harbour, on Peasholm Island, at the Castle Keep and an LED tunnel from 14 November to 21 December, a ticketed drone show over the castle from 19 to 23 November, Santa arriving by boat at the harbour slipway at 11am on 15 November and a grotto at Boyes until 21 December. The Spa pantomime is Robin Hood and the Babes in the Wood from early December to early January (the Spa gives 4 December to 3 January in its announcement and 5 December to 2 January in its listing; check when booking), and the Stephen Joseph Theatre has Puss in Boots from 5 to 31 December. Scarborough Sparkle at the Open Air Theatre has no 2026 date yet. Sea Life closes on Christmas Day and Boxing Day. The Scarborough Lions dip is on New Year's Day, not Boxing Day: 12.30 on the foreshore by the lifeboat house, £10.

Robin Hood's Bay's Victorian Weekend ended with the 2025 event, when no new organisers came forward, so there is none this year. Staithes and Sandsend have nothing listed.

Helmsley and the western Moors

Helmsley's switch-on date is not yet published; last year it was the last Friday of November, with Santa's sleigh in the Market Place at 4.30, carols at 5, the Town Crier switching on from the Town Hall balcony at 5.30 and the Christmas Tree Festival opening at All Saints at 6. Helmsley Walled Garden is open Wednesday to Sunday 10 to 4 until it closes for the winter on 20 December (adult £14, under-16s free). Helmsley Arts Centre has its pantomime, Treasure Island, from 5 to 13 December, a Christmas concert on 15 December and It's a Wonderful Life on 16 December. The Feversham Arms and the Black Swan both sell Christmas breaks. Rievaulx Abbey opens on a reduced winter pattern; check English Heritage before driving out. Nunnington Hall's Nature's Noel, twenty trees decorated by local groups with natural and recycled decorations, runs Thursday to Sunday from 19 November to 20 December, with festive evenings on 5 and 12 December and a bookable Father Christmas; National Trust members go free. Ryedale Folk Museum at Hutton-le-Hole has a Christmas shopping weekend on 28 and 29 November and then closes until March. Kirkbymoorside's Christmas market was on 29 November last year, with no 2026 date yet.

Castle Howard and the big days out

Castle Howard's Christmas show this year is A Dickens of a Christmas, from 12 November to 3 January: Dickens' novels staged through the house with projection and sound, Scrooge and his ghosts included. The house is open 10 to 4 (last entry 3) and the gardens from 9.30 or 10 depending on the day. House tickets run from £24 to £40 for adults and £12 to £20 for children depending on date and time, plus a 5.5 per cent booking fee, and are non-refundable; gardens only from £15; Father Christmas in the Castle from £60 a child, 21 November to 24 December. No after-dark light trail is listed: the gardens have lit trees on the North Drive and firepits for marshmallows. It is the biggest ticketed Christmas event within easy reach of the villages on this page, and popular dates sell out.

Further afield for a week's stay: York's St Nicholas Fair runs 12 November to 21 December and is closed on Tuesdays this year; Harrogate's Christmas Fayre is reported not to be running in 2026; Beverley's Festival of Christmas is listed for Sunday 13 December; Stockeld Park's Christmas Adventure runs 21 November to 24 December; Harewood's Christmas is 6 November to 3 January. Flamingo Land's Christmas days run through December, closed 25 to 28 December, with prices still to come.

Malton

Malton's winter festival is the St Clement's Festival on Saturday 21 November in the Market Place, free, with crafts, food and late-night shopping; Little Bird artisan markets follow on 21 November and 19 December. The Christmas market that replaced the cancelled Estate festival last year has no 2026 date yet. Visit Malton keeps the fullest list.

What is open on Christmas Day

Almost nothing, and no public transport. In recent years the Coastliner 840 and the X93 have run a Saturday service on Christmas Eve finishing early evening and nothing on Christmas Day, Boxing Day or New Year's Day; no trains run on Christmas Day anywhere in Britain and Northern has not run Boxing Day trains on the Esk Valley line in recent years. The 2026 festive timetables appear in December. The Dalby Forest visitor centre, Sea Life and the National Park centres at Danby and Sutton Bank are closed on Christmas Day; Dalby's centre and Sea Life stay shut on Boxing Day, and the park centres close on Christmas Eve too. The forest itself stays open. What is open is the pubs that serve Christmas Day lunch, every one of them on a booking taken weeks before, and the moor itself. Boxing Day is the walking day: the Whitby dip in the morning, then the Cinder Track, Levisham Moor or the forest roads at Dalby, with a pub at the end that you have checked is open.

Does it snow, and which roads close

It snows on the high moor most winters, usually for a few days at a time between December and March, and far less on the coast and in the dales. When it does, the roads that go are the same every year: the A169 between Pickering and Whitby at the Hole of Horcum and on Blue Bank above Sleights, which is one in five and was blocked in November 2023 and at a standstill on 2 January 2026; the A170 at Sutton Bank, three sections of one in four with caravans banned; Blakey Ridge; and the Rosedale Chimney Bank, one in three at its steepest. North Yorkshire Council grits the main routes from about 5am and runs live cameras on Blue Bank, the Hole of Horcum, Sutton Bank, Clay Bank, Chop Gate and Blakey Ridge, refreshed every ten minutes, which is the first thing to look at on a snowy morning; the council's road cameras are linked here. The Moorsbus does not run in winter.

Winter walking and the dark

Daylight on the shortest day is from about 8.20am to 3.40pm, seven hours and twenty minutes. The National Park's advice is plain: carry a map, expect fog or a sea fret to cut visibility to a few metres, do not rely on a phone signal, and be off the tops with daylight to spare. Inland, about two days in three are dry. The low, firm walks are the December ones: Levisham Moor and the Hole of Horcum rim, the Cinder Track from Whitby or Robin Hood's Bay, the forest roads at Dalby, the Ellerburn circuit from Thornton-le-Dale and the escarpment path at Sutton Bank; our walks pages cover each, with the car park and the pub. The long nights have their own use: the Moors is an International Dark Sky Reserve, Danby has a new observatory, the Scarborough and Ryedale Astronomical Society runs public evenings in Dalby Forest on the first Friday of most winter months, and the Dark Skies Festival is 5 to 21 February 2027.

Where to stay for Christmas week

The NYMR's camping coach at Goathland and station house at Grosmont take three-night winter breaks from £495 and a four-night New Year stay; the Feversham Arms in Helmsley sells a 24 to 27 December break from £1,799 a couple; the Black Swan has three-night Christmas stays; Palm Court in Scarborough charges £95 for Christmas Day lunch on top of the room. Our where-to-stay guide covers the villages; book early for the Santa Express weekends.