Things to do on Thanksgiving in Los Angeles

Celebrate Thanksgiving with this catchall family-friendly event along Downtown’s Spring Street, a morning chock-full of races, games and activities centered around Los Angeles City Hall. Preemptively work off calories from your upcoming feast in either the 5K or the 10K run/walk. There’s also a “Widdle Wobble” for kids 12 and under and, for the first time this year, a 1K Dog Jog where your four-legged friends can join in. Turkey Day costumes are encouraged. Each year, the race benefits the Midnight Mission.

Drift into the Convention Center for the 10-day L.A. Auto Show with cars that would even make Bond drool. If you’re a car nerd, get behind the wheel to test drive one of the cherry rides (including an indoor EV track), while celebrities meet and greet at the manufacturer exhibits. With world and North American debuts from a slate of manufacturers, rev up for the machines of the future. The show is open 9am–4pm on Thanksgiving and will stay open later the rest of Thanksgiving weekend.

Billed as a “pre-meal celebration of turkeys,” the Gentle Barn’s Thanksgiving-morning event lets you cuddle turkeys, feed them treats and appreciate them for the intelligent and majestic fowl that they are. (This event will likely appeal more to the “animals are friends, not food” set, otherwise you might feel a little guilty sitting down to your Turkey Day feast after your farm visit.)

L.A. doesn’t typically seem like much of a winter wonderland, until, that is, you create an ice skating rink right in the midst of Downtown skyscrapers. Come glide around and pretend there’s snow on the ground at Pershing Square’s outdoor holiday skating rink. Skate rentals are included in admission, though lockers and skating aids cost a few dollars extra. The rink will be open 11:30am–9:30pm on Thanksgiving.

Like an Angelyne billboard on Sunset Boulevard, the Hollywood Christmas Parade is an essential part of L.A. kitsch. The nine-decade-old parade, which closes out Thanksgiving weekend, will feature floats, balloons, bands, equestrians and celebrities as they ride in a U-shaped route that begins at Hollywood and Orange and ends up at Sunset and Orange. Reserved grandstand seats can be purchased, with proceeds going to Toys for Tots, but free curbside seating is also available.

The L.A. Zoo is staying open after dark most nights through January during this delightful take on its light-up holiday tradition. Once again, the event’s “Animals Aglow” edition will go all in on oversized animal-shaped lanterns. The result is a colorful, charming trail that celebrates the zoo’s natural inhabitants. You can stomp on a color-changing hopscotch path, relax on illuminated swings, dance inside a shell of kaleidoscopic mirrors and bounce on some glowing seesaws. Tip: Wear comfortable shoes; you’ll be walking slightly uphill for most of the way. L.A. Zoo Lights will be closed on Thanksgiving day, but will turn the lights back on for the rest of the weekend. 

Discovery and wonder are set to inhabit the illuminated installations once again in Descanso Gardens’ holiday tradition. The botanical garden’s nighttime experience masterfully mixes hands-on art installations with atmospheric, luminescent forests, all against a background of uplit trees and shimmery sound effects. Though the event isn’t open on Thanksgiving day, you can visit it on either side of the holiday.

There’s nothing Christmassy nor even wintry about this hourlong Palos Verdes trail, yet its nine stellar installations are the most cosmically mesmerizing of the budding after-dark botanical garden shows that’ve come to blanket L.A. toward the end of the year. You can check it out on Thanksgiving evening.

Riverside’s stunningly beautiful Mission Inn is bathed in 4.5 million twinkly lights during the annual Festival of Lights. The free six-week-long holiday tradition runs from late November (including Thanksgiving) to early January and typically features more than 400 animated figures. Having been voted the “Best Public Lights Display” by USA Today, the festival attracts over 500,000 visitors each year.

Stroll across the grounds of King Gillette Ranch as the Santa Monica Mountains hideaway is illuminated during Holiday Road, which returns with a nearly mile-long walking trail. The event, which comes from the same team as Nights of the Jack, includes thousands of lights, festive decor like a small Christmas village, larger-than-life holiday displays and lit-up archways. Look out for Santa and Mrs. Claus, and fill up with food trucks and a holiday bar while you’re there. Prices start at $25 before fees and go up depending on the day and time you visit. Holiday Road kicks off the night after Thanksgiving.