300,000 lights, 240+ restaurants, one 55-foot tree

Toronto's Winter Festivals

Our summer festivals guide covers Caribana, TIFF and Nuit Blanche. Toronto's winter has its own lineup — a tree-lighting tradition running since 1967, and a restaurant deal built specifically to survive the industry's slowest month.

The Christmas tree at Nathan Phillips Square in Toronto — Nathan Phillips Square Christmas tree — Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons licensed

Our Toronto festivals guide covers the big summer names — Caribana, TIFF, Pride, Nuit Blanche. Winter has its own, quieter lineup, and one of them has been running for almost as long as Canada's current flag has existed.

Cavalcade of Lights (since 1967)

The Cavalcade of Lights has lit Nathan Phillips Square's official Christmas tree every year since 1967 — the same civic square covered in our city government guide. More than 300,000 energy-efficient LED lights now illuminate the square nightly through the holiday season, alongside fireworks, live music and outdoor skating.

Winterlicious (since 2003)

Launched by the City of Toronto in 2003, Winterlicious runs for two weeks each February — deliberately timed to one of the slowest months of the year for restaurant business — offering discounted three-course prix fixe menus, typically $20–55 for lunch and $25–75 for dinner, across more than 240 participating restaurants citywide.

The Distillery Winter Village

Since 2010, the Distillery District's Victorian industrial buildings have hosted a European-style Christmas market, rebranded in 2020 as the Distillery Winter Village — cobblestone lanes, a 55-foot Christmas tree strung with 80,000 lights, and a food-and-craft market inside the same 19th-century brick warehouses covered in our architecture and cocktail scene guides.

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