Christmas Concerts and Parties in Los Angeles 2026
Updated 6 min read Mary Kaynelidi
A city with a classical-music Christmas and a rock-club one, running at the same time
Los Angeles stages holiday concerts in two registers that rarely share a stage: a classical and choral season built around Walt Disney Concert Hall and Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, and a looser, genre-mixed one running through the city's rock clubs and jazz rooms. Mood lists 74 confirmed Christmas-tagged music events across Los Angeles between 20nd of November and 27th of December 2026, from a cappella choir programs to a mariachi residency to an arena-scale alt-rock bill at the Forum.
Carols and choirs
Walt Disney Concert Hall carries two of the season's choral anchors: White Christmas Sing-Along on 22nd of December, and A Chanticleer Christmas on 18th of December, built around the a cappella ensemble's unaccompanied vocal arrangements - Mood's data rates the Chanticleer booking at a full 1.0 on polish, the ceiling of the platform's scale.
Pepperdine's campus hall adds a Pepperdine Choir and Orchestra Christmas Concert and the a cappella sextet Voctave's "It Feels Like Christmas," both on 4th and 14th of December. Smaller, community-scale choral nights fill out the category: the Randy Van Horne Singers' annual concert in Alhambra on 20th of December, and A Crescendo Christmas at Dailey Theatre on 12th of December, a variety-format program mixing traditional carols with show tunes.
Classical, orchestral and candlelight series
Cerritos Center hosts Mannheim Steamroller Christmas by Chip Davis on 3rd of December, the longest-running touring orchestral-rock Christmas show in the US, alongside two Merry-achi Christmas dates pairing a full mariachi ensemble with a chamber-orchestra arrangement.
Walt Disney Concert Hall runs Le Concert d'Astrée's baroque program "Celebrating Christmas" twice, on 19th and 20th of December, built on 17th-century French and German sacred repertoire rather than the pop-orchestral arrangements that dominate the rest of the season.
The Candlelight series - string-quartet and chamber-ensemble sets performed by candlelight - is the category's volume play: Mood counts at least a dozen Candlelight dates across the LA Equestrian Center, the Queen Mary, the Biltmore and several hotel ballrooms between 6th and 27th of December, cycling through "Christmas Classics," "Christmas Carols on Strings" and a pop-arrangement variant.
Jazz and vocal Christmas
Catalina Jazz Club runs its own mini-festival of Christmas jazz, anchored by two dates of pianist David Benoit's "A Charlie Brown Christmas" on 28th-29th of November - a show Benoit has toured for over two decades, built around Vince Guaraldi's original 1965 television score - plus a swinging set from pianist Wayne Linsey on 7th of December.
Saxophonist Dave Koz brings his long-running Christmas tour to Cerritos Center for back-to-back dates on 19th and 20th of December, and vocalist Dianne Reeves plays "Christmas Time is Here" at Walt Disney Concert Hall on 21st of December.
The Blue Note books two different vocal-jazz bills in the same week - Jane Lynch's "A Swingin' Little Christmas" on 18th-19th of December and singer-songwriter Niia on 23rd December - while the smaller Skiptown Playhouse runs a pair of cabaret-leaning vocal-jazz nights built around torch singers Judy Paris and the songbook of Julie London.
Gigs and Christmas parties
Mood's data reads the genre-mixed club and arena circuit as the city's rawest Christmas booking, in a season otherwise built on choral polish and orchestral arrangement. KROQ's Almost Acoustic Christmas at the Kia Forum on 13th of December - the radio station's long-running alt-rock bill - scores 0.6 on Mood's grit dimension, the highest reading of any Christmas-tagged event in the city this season, ahead of every dedicated rock-club booking despite being the week's biggest-capacity show.
The Forum's other December date, Pentatonix's "Christmas in the City Tour" on 23rd of December, sits at the opposite end, built on the a cappella group's arranged vocal harmonies rather than a live band. Rockabilly singer JD McPherson's "Socks" tour plays two separate LA-area rooms - the Teragram Ballroom and Pacific Electric - five days apart, and Belinda Carlisle headlines a new wave-leaning Christmas party at the Abbey on 4 December.
Mariachi gets its own cluster: Merry-achi Christmas Concert at the United Theater on Broadway tops Mood's fashion dimension at 0.8, the highest of any booking in the dataset - ahead of every jazz-club or rock-venue Christmas night in the city.
Celtic and Irish folk gets two rooms of its own at Alvas Showroom and the James R. Armstrong Theatre, and gospel singer CeCe Winans headlines the Peacock Theater on 18th of December with sisters Angie and Debbie Winans.
Two more genres get single, standalone bookings: swing revivalists Squirrel Nut Zippers bring their "Christmas Caravan" to the Bellwether on 4 December, and country station KFrog stages its "Christmas Throwdown" at the Inland Empire's Toyota Arena on 5th of December - the only country-format Christmas show in Mood's current Los Angeles listings.
What the data says about this season overall
Across the full 74-event set, Mood's enrichment reads an average organicness score of 0.82 - one of the highest seasonal readings the platform tracks for Los Angeles, reflecting a calendar built overwhelmingly on choirs, chamber ensembles and acoustic jazz rather than electronic or club-production formats.
None of the 74 events falls on Christmas Day or Boxing Day itself - the latest confirmed date in Mood's current listings is 27th of December, at a Candlelight date in Downtown LA - so a reader looking specifically for 25th or 26th of December programming will not find it in this list yet; Mood will add any later-announced Christmas Day bookings as they're confirmed.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the biggest Christmas show in Los Angeles in 2026?
By venue capacity, KROQ's Almost Acoustic Christmas and Pentatonix's "Christmas in the City Tour," both at the Kia Forum, are the largest-scale bookings Mood lists for the 2026 Los Angeles Christmas season.
Is there a Nutcracker performance in LA this Christmas?
Mood lists a Nutcracker-referencing program at the Queen Mary, "Christmas Special Featuring 'The Nutcracker' & More," on 20 December, within its classical and candlelight-series cluster rather than as a full ballet production.
Are there free Christmas concerts in Los Angeles?
Mood's current Christmas listings are ticketed shows at clubs, theaters and concert halls; none of the 74 confirmed events in this list is free entry. Public tree-lighting ceremonies and shopping-district light displays exist separately from Mood's music listings and aren't covered here.
What kind of music dominates LA's Christmas concert calendar?
Choral and orchestral programming is the largest single cluster - carol concerts, a cappella sets and the multi-date Candlelight chamber-ensemble series - followed by jazz-club Christmas nights and a smaller cluster of rock, pop and mariachi bookings.
Is there a family-friendly charity Christmas show in LA?
Landon's Christmas Rock Party at Garden Amp runs eight tribute acts across two stages and asks attendees to bring a new, unwrapped toy at the gate for the Marine Toys for Tots Foundation.
Mood keeps tracking new Christmas bookings across Los Angeles as venues confirm December dates - browse the full Los Angeles events calendar on Mood for anything added after this list went up.
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