Christmas and New Year in Seoul, 2026–27: what actually happens
Korea does the season differently. Christmas is a public holiday but a couples’ night out rather than a family day; the big family holiday is the lunar new year in February. What Seoul does brilliantly is light — a month of lantern and illumination festivals — and the turn of the year itself: a bronze bell struck 33 times at midnight, and a national pilgrimage to the east coast for the first sunrise. Both 25 December 2026 and 1 January 2027 fall on a Friday, which makes two long weekends and means the coast, the ski resorts and the trains fill early.
| Thu 24 Dec | Christmas Eve. Not a holiday — offices work, shops open late, restaurants are fully booked. |
|---|---|
| Fri 25 Dec | Christmas Day, public holiday. Palaces, museums, department stores and attractions open; banks and government offices closed. |
| Thu 31 Dec | Bosingak bell-ringing at midnight in Jongno. Subway hours are normally extended into the early hours for it. |
| Fri 1 Jan | New Year’s Day, public holiday. Sunrise in Seoul is about 07:47; on the east coast about 15 minutes earlier. The national museums close for the day. |
| Sat 6 – Tue 9 Feb | Seollal, the lunar new year, is the holiday that really moves the country — separate guide. |
What Christmas is here, and what it is not
Around a third of Koreans are Christian, so churches are full on the night of the 24th and Myeongdong Cathedral’s midnight Mass is open to anyone who arrives early enough. For everyone else Christmas Eve is a date night: the restaurants and hotel buffets that take reservations are booked out days ahead, the streets of Myeongdong, Hongdae and Seongsu are packed until late, and the department stores compete on facade lighting — Shinsegae’s main store opposite Myeongdong has been the postcard for years, and The Hyundai Seoul in Yeouido builds an indoor Christmas village that draws queues of its own.
What you will not find is a shutdown. On the 25th almost everything a visitor wants is open: the palaces (Friday is not a closing day for any of them), the big museums, Lotte World and Everland, the markets. Treat it as a busy Saturday with lights.
The lights, which run into January
Seoul’s winter illuminations are not a Christmas thing so much as a season. The Seoul Lantern Festival fills the Cheonggyecheon stream with lit sculptures from mid-December into mid-January, Seoul Light Gwanghwamun projects onto the palace gate and the square over the same weeks, and the stream’s own winter lights run alongside. All three are free, ten minutes’ walk apart, and best after 18:00 when the crowds thin a little on weeknights.
Out of town, the Garden of Morning Calm lights its whole hillside garden from early December to mid-March and pairs with Nami Island on a day trip; Everland runs its Christmas programme through the holidays; and in Busan, Gwangbok-ro’s tree festival strings the old downtown end to end until February.
Seoul Lantern Festival
Seoul Light Gwanghwamun
Lighting Festival at The Garden of Morning Calm
Christmas Eve and Day: a plan that works
| Dinner | Book before you fly. If you have not, hotel buffets and department-store food halls are the reliable fallback, and barbecue restaurants in non-tourist neighbourhoods rarely take reservations at all. |
|---|---|
| Midnight Mass | Myeongdong Cathedral, 24 December. Seats go early; the courtyard fills with people who could not get in and stay anyway. Dress warmly — it is largely outdoors. |
| Skating | The Seoul Plaza ice rink in front of City Hall opens in mid-December and charges around 1,000 won an hour including skates — the best-value hour in the city. Sessions sell out on the 24th and 25th; go on a weekday morning instead. |
| Theme parks | Lotte World is indoors and Everland runs a Christmas Fantasy season; both are at their busiest of the year on the 24th and 25th. If you must, arrive at opening. |
| Palaces | Open on the 25th. Gyeongbokgung in snow is the photograph everyone wants and nobody can plan; Deoksugung’s stone-wall path is lit and lovely regardless. |
New Year’s Eve: the bell
Seoul’s midnight is not fireworks but a bell. At Bosingak, the belfry on Jongno that once signalled the opening and closing of the city gates, the bell is struck 33 times as the year turns, by a rota of civic guests, in front of a crowd that runs to six figures. Roads around Jonggak close from the evening, there is a stage with performances from around 22:00, and the subway keeps running well past its normal last train so people can get home — the extension is announced each year in late December.
Practicalities: arrive by 22:30 for any view of the belfry, wear more than you think you need (it is usually around −5 °C by midnight), and know that leaving takes an hour. If the crowd is not for you, Lotte World Tower in Jamsil has fired a fireworks and light show from the tower at midnight in recent years, watched from Seokchon Lake and the river parks; and Busan runs a countdown at Gwangalli Beach with a drone show over the water on the night of the 1st.
Countdown Busan
Gwangalli M Drone Light Show
Jeonju New Year's Eve Festival
The first sunrise, and the trains that go to it
Haemaji — going to watch the first sunrise of the year — is a genuine national habit, and on the night of 31 December the east coast fills up. The earliest sunrise on the mainland is at Ganjeolgot near Ulsan, a little after 07:30; Jeongdongjin north of Gangneung is the classic, with the train line running along the beach; Homigot at Pohang has the giant bronze hand rising from the sea; and in the south-west Hyangiram, a hermitage on the cliffs at Yeosu, holds a festival around it.
Korail runs special overnight sunrise trains and every seat on the regular services is gone within minutes of release, so if this is the plan, book the moment tickets open (about a month ahead) or take a coach tour, which is how most visitors do it. The alternative is to stay in Seoul and climb: Namsan, Achasan or the Haneul Park hill all take the first light, with a fraction of the travel.
Ulju Ganjeolgot Sunrise Festival
Jeongdongjin Sunrise Festival
Homigot Sunrise Festival
Open and closed
| Open on both holidays | Palaces, Lotte World, Everland, department stores, convenience stores, most restaurants in tourist districts, the subway on a holiday timetable. |
|---|---|
| Closed 25 Dec | Banks, post offices, government offices, many independent shops outside the centre. |
| Closed 1 Jan | The above, plus the National Museum of Korea and the other national museums, which take New Year’s Day off. Check any specific museum before you go. |
| Full | Ski resorts, east-coast hotels on the 31st, KTX to Gangneung and Busan on the 31st and 1st. Book those first and build the rest around them. |
What to wear
Late December in Seoul averages just below freezing and drops to −10 °C in cold snaps, with dry air and a wind that does more damage than the thermometer suggests. The full briefing — layers, why snow boots are unnecessary in the city, and what Seollal does to the palace closing days — is in the Korea in winter guide.
Korea in winterSeollal 2027December festivalsJanuary festivalsTrip Planner