Lanterns of sea turtles and jellyfish at L.A. Zoo Lights.
Photograph: Gillian Glover for Time Out
Photograph: Gillian Glover for Time Out

December 2025 events calendar for Los Angeles

Plan your month with our December 2025 events calendar of the best activities, including free things to do, holiday festivals and our favorite concerts

Gillian Glover
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After endless, premature teases from retailers, the holidays are here for real, and they’ve taken over our December events calendar. Dive into the spirit of giving with a stop at one of the best gift shops in L.A., or behold one of the city’s best Christmas lights displays. If you’re sticking around town this year and feeling a little lonely, maybe consider embracing it with some me-time at one of these secluded getaways. Whatever your plans are—even if you’re feeling like a bit of a grinch—you’ll find plenty of activities to take advantage of in our December events calendar.

RECOMMENDED: Full events calendar for 2025

This December’s best events

  • Things to do
  • Markets and fairs
  • Downtown Arts District
  • Recommended
Every Sunday, you can find dozens of food vendors at this market at ROW DTLA, a Brooklyn import that boasts a mix of much-loved pop-ups and future foodie stars. You can feast on Maine lobster from Lobsterdamus, Michoacán-style carnitas from Los Cochinitos, plant-based Mexican fare from Cena Vegan, slices from URBN Pizza, treats from Black- and Asian-owned Lei'd Cookies and much more. Wash it all down at the family-friendly beer garden. You’ll also find shopping stalls selling everything from framed vintage ads to jewelry made locally with ethically sourced gemstones. Entry and the first two hours of parking are free.
  • Things to do
  • Recommended
The term CicLAvia stems from a similar Spanish word for “bike way,” and in L.A. it’s become a shorthand for the temporary, festival-like closing of L.A.’s streets. The event (inspired by the first Ciclovías in Bogotá, Colombia) welcomes bikes, tricycles, skateboards, strollers and basically anything else without an engine to ride a rotating cast of car-free routes. You’ll inevitably always find a route each year around Downtown, but past events have taken it anywhere from the harbor to the San Gabriel Valley. Expect music, street performances and food trucks, as well as general whimsy and shenanigans along the way. Shop owners and restaurants along the CicLAvia route also tend to host specials. It goes without saying that you should bike or take the Metro to your desired spot along the route.
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  • Art
  • Pasadena
  • price 1 of 4
On the 50th anniversary of the Norton Simon Museum, look back to when Simon took over management of the Pasadena Art Museum in 1975, then ahead to the museum’s exciting future at this retrospective exhibition. See rare photos from the museum’s archives, and learn about the history of its major acquisitions, exhibitions, building and gardens—which are currently undergoing a transformation.
  • Shopping
  • Pasadena
  • Recommended
Perhaps the Los Angeles area’s most iconic flea market, this event around the exterior of the Rose Bowl is staggeringly colossal—but what else would you expect from a 90,000-seat stadium? The sheer size and scale of this flea market means that it encompasses multitudes: new and old, hand-crafted and salvaged, the cheap and the costly. On the second Sunday of each month, an odd mix of vendors populates the loop around the stadium: for every eye-catching artwork, there’s a ratty $5 T-shirt, and for each elegant craft there’s a competing “as seen on TV” demo. But you may have more luck in the rows and rows of old furniture, albums and vintage clothes and accessories that fill the adjacent parking lot. There are plenty of duds, to be sure, but come out early enough and you may go home with that perfect purchase. This destination flea market attracts bargain hunters, collectors, and antique aficionados from all over the county, so the organizers have instituted an extensive tiered entry/admission system, allowing professional and dedicated shoppers early access at a premium.
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  • Art
  • Griffith Park
More than 50 works on display at the Autry showcase how indigenous artists have crafted visions of alternative futures in the face of enduring colonial trauma. The bottom-floor exhibition opens with a semicircle of high fashion, including remarkable crow attire from Cannupa Hanska Luger, which is paired with video footage from his accompanying performance piece. Star Wars plays a surprisingly large role in the vibrant show, including Andy Everson’s Northwest Coast-inspired take on stormtrooper helmets. The exhibition spills into the upstairs galleries, too, with a surreal spacescape from Wendy Red Star and a multimedia installation from Virgil Ortiz, who’s reimagined the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 through a Dune-meets-MCU film-like lens. Also, make sure to check out the museum’s other PST ART show, which opened back in May and runs through January 5, 2025; “Out of Site: Survey Science and the Hidden West” tackles everything from mining surveys to nuclear blasts in its examination of documenting and surveilling Western U.S. landscapes.
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