Your Guide to Holiday Events on the Carolina Coast
The holidays look a little different at the beach. String lights on porches instead of snow, boat parades instead of sleigh rides. Coastal North Carolina goes all in on the season in its own way, and here is what is already on the 2026 calendar.
Book this one first: Enchanted Airlie
Airlie Gardens runs Enchanted Airlie on November 27 and 28, then nightly from December 1 through 21, in four timed windows starting at 5:30, 6:30, 7:30 and 8:30 p.m. Tickets are sold by the carload, $35 for a car, truck, SUV or minivan and $65 for a 12 to 15 passenger van, and because they are timed, dates sell out. General public tickets go on sale October 28 at 9 a.m. Airlie members get in earlier, on October 14 and October 21. If there is one thing on this list to set a phone reminder for, it is that on-sale date.
The big one: the NC Holiday Flotilla
Wrightsville Beach hosts the North Carolina Holiday Flotilla over Thanksgiving weekend, November 27 to 29. The heart of it is Saturday the 28th: a Day in the Park with local vendors, food and kids’ activities from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., then the lighted boat parade at 6 p.m. with fireworks straight after. Friday night is the ticketed kickoff party at Bluewater Grill, and awards are Sunday morning. If you have never watched a few dozen boats run the waterway in lights with fireworks going up behind them, it is worth the drive.
Wilmington in December
Wilmington has the fullest holiday calendar on this coast. The downtown tree lighting is Saturday, November 28. Then come the holiday drone shows over the Cape Fear River on Sunday December 13, 20 and 27 at 7:30 p.m., launched from Water Street on the riverfront, with Santa there on the 13th and the 20th. Downtown, the historic district and the riverfront each run their own programming through the month, so a single Saturday in December will fill itself without much planning.
Closer to home: Surf City, Topsail and Hampstead
Our own towns run the tradition smaller, and better if you have kids in tow. Surf City lights its tree at Soundside Park, Topsail Beach pairs a lighted parade with its tree lighting, and Hampstead’s tree lighting at Kiwanis Park brings live performances, photos with Santa, hot chocolate and food trucks. The Topsail Christmas Market and Flotilla at Soundside Park is the one locals plan around, a full day of handmade gifts, food trucks and live music with the boat parade at 6 p.m.
None of these towns had posted 2026 dates as this was written, but they land in the same windows every year: Surf City and Topsail Beach around Thanksgiving weekend, Hampstead in the first week of December, and the Topsail market and flotilla on a Saturday in mid-December. Our guide to the season’s local events has the organizer links, so you can check as the dates firm up.
Pleasure Island and the Island of Lights
Carolina Beach and Kure Beach run the Island of Lights from the day after Thanksgiving through New Year’s, with a Christmas parade, a flotilla, Santa by the Sea on select Saturdays, and a New Year’s Eve beach ball drop and fireworks that alternates between the two towns. The 2026 schedule was not posted as this was written. In a normal year the parade falls on the Friday after Thanksgiving weekend at 7 p.m. and the flotilla the Saturday after at 6 p.m.
A quieter kind of holiday
If big events are not your thing, the off-season quiet of the coast in December has its own appeal. Walking a nearly empty beach on a crisp day, or watching the sunset from the sound side with nobody else around, is a different kind of holiday, and it is the one a lot of full-time residents here treasure most.
Considering the coast for next year
If you have spent a holiday season visiting the coast and found yourself wishing you did not have to leave, you are not the only one. It is one of the more common reasons people start seriously looking at property here.
If the coast has been on your mind this season, let’s talk about what a move here could look like in the new year.