The 4 Best Things to Do in San Diego in December 2026

On two Sunday evenings in December, San Diego Bay becomes a parade route. About 80 decorated boats sail past the bayfront in a procession of lights, and anyone can watch for free from anywhere along the water. The San Diego Bay Parade of Lights is the best thing to do in San Diego in December, and 2026 is its 56th year.

The tradition was brought to San Diego by the boating community, and over the decades it has grown into one of the region's signature holiday events. Organizers put the crowd at more than 100,000. This year's theme is "Liberty Lights the Bay: Cheers to 250 Years," a nod to America's 250th birthday.

For the eighth year running, the route stretches out to the pier at Cesar Chavez Park before the boats turn toward Coronado. That extension opens up one more place to watch, and on a night when the best spots along the water fill up early, a little extra room goes a long way.

Choose your Sunday first: December 13 or December 20. The procession is scheduled to start at 5:30 PM, so it's dark and chilly by the time the boats come through. Bring a real jacket and something to sit on, get to the bayfront early, pick your spot along the water and settle in. Having two dates is the quiet advantage here. If rain or a holiday party takes out the 13th, the 20th is still on the calendar.

It edges out December Nights for No. 1 on a few counts. Its dates and free viewing are firmly set, you get two separate evenings to pick from, and nothing else this month looks like 80 lit boats out on the bay. For a visitor, it's the San Diego holiday picture. For a local, it's a standing date on the December calendar.

Balboa Park December Nights is two days of holiday everything, spread across the whole park, and it costs nothing to get in. The City bills it as San Diego's largest free holiday festival. In 2026 it runs Friday, December 4, from 4 to 10 PM and Saturday, December 5, from noon to 10 PM.

A lot happens at once. Several public stages run entertainment across the park, with community performance groups, a ballet performance and a "Christmas Story" show on the bill. Between stages there's a holiday lights display, a Santa sleigh, and vendors all over the grounds selling holiday food, drinks and gifts. Tuck a few pairs of socks in your bag, too. The festival runs a sock drive with PATH San Diego for people experiencing homelessness, and it's an easy way to give something back at a free event.

More than 350,000 people come through over the two days, so plan for it. Pick two or three areas of the park to anchor your visit and let the rest go. Then agree on a meeting point so specific nobody could miss it, before anyone wanders off. That spot matters more than which stage you catch. Free Cox Wi-Fi on-site helps when someone needs to send a "where are you?" text.

Friday is the six-hour evening version, easy to do after work. Saturday is the ten-hour full day, with daylight hours before the evening. December Nights sits a hair behind the Parade of Lights, mostly because the bay parade offers two separate Sundays while this one packs everything into a single Friday and Saturday. And the park around it is home to the museums and gardens in our other Balboa Park guides.

If December Nights is the citywide party, the La Jolla Christmas Parade is the hometown version. It takes over one Sunday afternoon, December 6, and 2026 marks its 70th year. The theme says it plainly: "A Village Christmas: Celebrating 70 Years of Holiday Tradition."

The parade steps off at 1 PM from Kline Street and Girard Avenue. Right after, the party moves to the La Jolla Rec Center for the Holiday Festival, which runs 1 to 5 PM with a Christmas Market full of vendor booths and visits with Santa by reservation. If your kids have a list to deliver, book the Santa visit ahead. You can keep it to the parade or stay for the whole four-hour festival, and since the two run back to back, it's one outing with no second drive.

Parking is the part to plan. La Jolla's streets are tight on an ordinary Sunday, and parade day adds tow-away zones. The organizers post a parking map, a no-parking map and a tow-away-zone map for download ahead of time, an unusually thorough bit of help for a street event. Look at all three before you drive in, then aim to claim a curbside spot near Kline and Girard before 1 PM.

It ranks third, just behind December Nights, mostly on access, because La Jolla parking takes more homework. For a group that wants its holiday cheer at village scale, with a parade, a market and Santa in a single afternoon, this is the pick. Seventy years is a lot of practice.

Between the parades and the festival, December leaves plenty of open afternoons, and the coast is how you fill them. A shore-side walk in the low winter sun needs no ticket and no start time, and it works on any day you're in town.

Walking is the right speed for the month. NOAA's December averages put the water at 60.2°F at La Jolla and 60.7°F in San Diego Bay, down from about 62.9°F at La Jolla in November. Those are monthly averages, useful for setting expectations, and the water on a given day can run warmer or cooler.

For a base, pick a beach with a permanent City lifeguard station. There are nine: Ocean Beach, South Mission Beach, Mission Beach, North Pacific Beach, Pacific Beach, Children's Pool, La Jolla Cove, La Jolla Shores and Black's Beach. Dozens more seasonal stations open only in summer, and staffing at the permanent ones still varies by beach and by hour. La Jolla Cove and La Jolla Shores make a good base for a December walk, and so does the Mission Beach and Pacific Beach corridor.

If anyone in your group wants to get in the water, make it a same-day call. Check the surf and the water quality (the City sends people to sdbeachinfo.com for that), and make sure a lifeguard is on duty before anyone goes in.

It ranks fourth for one simple reason: the coast is here every month, and the three events above it happen once a year. As the thing you do between those dates, it's hard to beat.