- What: The final cycle of Christmas and New Year cultural events in Heraklion
- When: Saturday, December 27 to Wednesday, December 31, 2025
- Where: Plateia Eleftherias, Jesus Gate, Venetian Walls, Loggia, and central city streets
- For whom: Families, children, music lovers, and anyone staying in the city through the end of the year
- What to expect: Traditional sweets, children’s performances, choirs, street dance, Cretan and Greek music, and a festive New Year’s Eve welcome pasted
How Heraklion Closes the Year: With Music, Stories, and Shared Space
As the year draws to a close, Heraklion chooses to mark its final days not with spectacle alone, but with a steady unfolding of culture in public space—events that invite residents and visitors to slow down, gather, and move through the city together.
The programme begins on Saturday, December 27, in Plateia Eleftherias, where the Cultural Association of Athanatoi prepares and offers koubanakia—traditional Cretan loukoumades closely tied to Christmas and New Year celebrations, especially in eastern Crete. The gesture is both festive and symbolic, reminding the city of shared values such as coexistence, cooperation, and the quiet joy of offering something warm in uncertain times.
Children take centre stage throughout the weekend, with Disney characters appearing near the Nikos Kazantzakis Garden Theatre, and the Cretan Winds Children’s Stage presenting “Ten Stories of the Kallikantzaroi” at Jesus Gate, blending storytelling with live traditional music from across Greece. Dance, too, claims its place, as street and Latin styles fill Plateia Eleftherias in a Christmas-themed showcase by local dance schools.
Music continues to guide the city through Sunday, December 28, and Monday, December 29, with choirs, children’s concerts, and Cretan ensembles shaping evenings that feel communal rather than ceremonial. On Tuesday, December 30, a musical journey through Greek tradition brings together lyra, laouto, clarinet, and guitar, tracing familiar stories of love, history, and everyday life.
The year concludes on New Year’s Eve, with live music in Plateia Eleftherias, a musical walk through the city centre led by the Municipal Philharmonic, and a shared midnight welcome to the new year. Alongside these events, large-scale art reproductions line the Venetian Walls, turning the city’s fortifications into an open-air gallery that remains accessible beyond the holiday season.
Together, these final cultural moments form less a countdown and more a closing gesture—an invitation to experience Heraklion not as a backdrop, but as a living stage.
