Christmas and New Year in Montana 2026: Strolls, Tree Permits and Torchlight Parades

A Montana Christmas is small-town and outdoorsy: a Friday-night stroll down Main Street with horse-drawn wagons and fire pits, a $5 permit to cut your own tree in a national forest, a torchlight parade of skiers down a mountain on New Year's Eve. The ski season is starting, Yellowstone's snowcoaches begin running in mid-December, and the days are short: the sun sets before 5 p.m. everywhere in the state.

This guide lists the 2026 dates that have been published, marks last year's dates where this year's aren't out yet, and flags two changes in Missoula that older guides get wrong.

Christmas strolls and parades, 2026

Most Montana towns hold a "Christmas stroll": shops open late, the town tree is lit, Santa arrives, and there is music, cocoa and often a horse-drawn wagon. These are the dates confirmed so far:

Not yet announced for 2026, with last year's pattern:

• Billings Holiday Parade: the Friday after Thanksgiving (November 28 in 2025, 6:30 p.m.), which would make it November 27 this year.
• Helena Parade of Lights: also the day after Thanksgiving, on the Last Chance Gulch walking mall.
• Great Falls Christmas Stroll: Friday, December 5, 2025. The Parade of Lights runs down Central Avenue.
• Butte Uptown Christmas Stroll: Friday, December 5, 2025, 5–9 p.m., with a children's light parade after the tree lighting.
• Kalispell "Christmas City of the North" Parade: late November or early December on Main Street; sources disagree on the day.

Whitefish's stroll is the most atmospheric of these, with fire dancers, fire pits and s'mores, and wagon rides. It is also where buttons for the February Winter Carnival go on sale. Bozeman's has Santa photos, a gingerbread-house contest and wagon rides on Main Street.

Missoula has changed twice. The moving Parade of Lights became Holidays on Higgins after the pandemic: floats are parked along North Higgins Avenue and you walk past them. It runs on the first Saturday of December, with free carriage rides from noon to 3 p.m. on the first three weekends of December, Santa photos at the Missoula Public Library, a makers' market and burn barrels. First Night Missoula is now Missoula on Main, on December 30–31.

Cut your own Christmas tree

Montana's national forests issued nearly 29,000 Christmas tree permits in 2024, a third more than in 2016. It is cheap and easy:

• Price: $5 per tree, up to three per household, plus a $2.50 fee if you buy online. That was the 2025 price, and Custer Gallatin's 2026 permit page shows the same.
• Where to buy: Recreation.gov (search "[forest name] Christmas Tree Permit"), or at a ranger district office. Custer Gallatin permits went on sale online on October 8, 2026 and at offices from November 7. Lolo, Bitterroot and Flathead announced theirs in late November last year.
• Fourth graders with an Every Kid Outdoors pass get a free permit; only the $2.50 online fee applies.
• Buy from the forest you will cut in. Sources disagree on whether one permit covers every forest in Montana.

The rules are on each permit page. In general: maximum height 12 ft, stump no taller than 6 inches, take the whole tree, and no cutting in wilderness areas, campgrounds, plantations, within 150 ft of streams or within sight of main roads. Helena-Lewis and Clark bans cutting five-needle pines, and Lolo bans cutting in the Rattlesnake, Pattee Canyon and Blue Mountain recreation areas near Missoula. Display the permit on your dashboard, and check road conditions first: many forest roads are not plowed.

In 2015 the US Capitol Christmas Tree stopped in Missoula on its way from Alaska to Washington. Image: Forest Service Northern Region from Missoula, MT, USA, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Skiing over the holidays

Big Sky Resort opens on Wednesday, November 25, the day before Thanksgiving; it is the only Montana resort with an official date so far. OnTheSnow's projected openings for the rest are: Great Divide November 27; Discovery, Montana Snowbowl and Whitefish Mountain Resort December 4; Lost Trail and Showdown December 11; Bridger Bowl and Teton Pass December 18; Maverick December 19; Blacktail December 26. Red Lodge Mountain is projected for late November or early December, depending on the source. All of these depend on snow.

Whitefish is the safest bet for a white Christmas on the slopes: an OpenSnow analysis in 2019 found it had opened its whole mountain by Christmas every year since 2011 but one. Bridger Bowl was open on Christmas Day 2025, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., but its shuttle buses didn't run that day.

Rime-coated "snow ghost" trees on the summit of Big Mountain at Whitefish Mountain Resort. Image: Forest Service - Northern Region, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Torchlight parades and fireworks

In a torchlight parade, ski instructors descend the mountain in the dark carrying flares, and fireworks follow. 2026 times aren't out yet; these are 2025's:

• Big Sky Resort, Christmas Eve: a torchlight parade down Andesite Mountain followed by fireworks, visible from Mountain Village.
• Bridger Bowl, December 30 (not New Year's Eve): free. A spaghetti dinner from 4 p.m. in the lodges ($18 for adults in 2025), the torch descent at nightfall, then fireworks at the base.
• Whitefish Mountain Resort, December 31: the parade starts at 5:45 p.m. from the Upper Village, ending with fireworks; watch from the bottom of Ed's Run. Anyone can sign up to ski in it.
• Big Sky Resort, December 31: fireworks at 9 p.m. from the base area, with music in Mountain Village during the day.

Great Divide near Helena, Showdown, Maverick and Teton Pass have also held New Year's Eve torchlight parades in past years. Check their sites in December.

New Year's Eve in town

In 2025, Bozeman's options ran from a show at the Rialto to a rooftop party at the Armory Hotel and a "Countdown to Noon" for children. Chico Hot Springs in Paradise Valley had live music from 9 p.m. Missoula on Main fills downtown Missoula on December 30 and 31; its 2026 programme hasn't been published.

Lights and a Christmas train

• Holiday Nights at ZooMontana, Billings: a drive-through light display that ran from November 28 to December 31 last year, 5–9 p.m. It may close in extreme cold or heavy snow.
• North Pole Adventure train, Lewistown: the Charlie Russell Chew Choo runs a Christmas train from November 27 to December 19, 2026, boarding at the Hanover station about 10 miles from town. Tickets went on sale on October 5 and sell out quickly. Montana has no official "Polar Express" train; this is the nearest thing.

Yellowstone and Glacier at Christmas

Yellowstone is open, but only one road takes cars: from Gardiner through Mammoth Hot Springs and the Lamar Valley to Cooke City. Snowcoach and snowmobile travel to Old Faithful starts on December 15, 2026, and the Old Faithful Snow Lodge opens on December 16. The Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel is open through the winter and can be reached by car. Our Yellowstone winter guide has the details.

A Yellowstone snowcoach on the snow-covered road through the Hoodoos near Mammoth. Image: Yellowstone National Park, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Glacier has no lodges open in winter. The Going-to-the-Sun Road is plowed only from West Glacier to Lake McDonald Lodge, beyond which you can walk, ski or snowshoe. The Apgar Visitor Center is open at weekends. See our Montana in winter guide.

Driving over the holidays

• Check 511mt.net, the MDT 511 app or call 511 before every trip; road cameras update every 15 minutes.
• The Beartooth Highway and Going-to-the-Sun Road over Logan Pass are closed all winter.
• Keep the tank full, carry a winter kit, turn off cruise control on snow, and expect black ice on bridges and in shade.
• December can be mild or brutal: the statewide December average was 25.9°F in 2019 and 28.5°F in 2020.

The Montana Historical Society in Helena holds a Christmas greeting painted by Charles M. Russell, Montana's cowboy artist, with his own verse.

A Christmas greeting painted by Charles M. Russell, with his verse beneath the rider. Image: Charles Marion Russell, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Dates checked October 2026. Events marked as last year's will be confirmed by their organisers in November.