Happy Holidays: Best Cities for Christmas 

Christmas is just around the corner, and it’s one of the most exciting times of the year. It can also be one of the most expensive holidays, with Americans expected to spend over $1 trillion from November 1 to December 31 this year. 

To identify the most festive and affordable cities for Christmas celebrations, we compared the 100 biggest cities in the U.S. based on 28 key indicators such as traditions, shopping, and costs. So, if you want to make this Christmas a memorable one without breaking the bank, check out our list of the most Christmas-friendly cities in the U.S. below.

Top 5 Cities for Christmas in 2025

1. Atlanta
2. San Francisco
3. Seattle
4. Orlando
5. Las Vegas

“With inflation making Christmas celebrations, gifts, food and travel more expensive, certain cities are much better for your wallet than others during the holiday. In addition to being affordable, the best cities have a large number of people celebrating, plenty of places for Christians to worship, populations who give generously to charity, and plenty of fun activities to enjoy with family and friends.”

Chip Lupo, WalletHub Analyst

In-Depth Look at the Best Cities for Christmas

Atlanta, GA

Atlanta is the best city for Christmas celebrations this year, with plenty of stores to help you prepare for the holiday, including an extremely high number of bakeries, holiday decoration shops and card shops per capita. Atlanta is also one of the best cities when it comes to the prevalence of affordable restaurants rated at least 4.5 stars, if you want to eat out for the holiday (or want a break from cooking afterward). It has the 10th-most Christmas tree farms per capita, too. 

In addition, Atlanta residents get very excited about Christmas, searching Google for terms relating to the holiday more frequently than people in most other cities. The giving spirit can also be felt by Atlanta residents and visitors alike, as the city has the ninth-highest percentage of people who donate clothing to charity, along with the 13th-most online donations per capita. 

San Francisco, CA

San Francisco is the second-best place for celebrating Christmas in 2025, in part because it’s a great place for getting treats and presents. San Francisco is among the top cities when it comes to the number of candy stores and chocolatiers per capita, and it takes the top spot for affordable 4.5+ star restaurants. Plus, it has the most card shops, the third-most gift shops and the fourth-most shopping centers per capita.

In addition, San Francisco has the highest number of food banks per capita. It also has the fourth-most number of attractions, making it easy to find something to do during the holidays.. 

Finally, if you want a fun winter activity to do with the family, San Francisco has the 20th-most ice skating rinks per capita!

Seattle, WA

Seattle is the third-best city for Christmas celebrations, in large part because people in the city really embody the giving spirit of the holiday. Seattle has the fifth-most online donations per capita, along with an extremely large number of food banks. It also has the 11th-highest share of people who collect, make or distribute clothing for charity. 

It’s easy to do your Christmas shopping in Seattle, as the city ranks among the top 10 cities in the country when it comes to the number of shopping centers and gift shops per capita. It also has a lot of Christmas tree farms and bakeries.

Staying in Seattle for Christmas isn’t too expensive, as the lowest price for a three-star hotel room on Christmas is just $77, the 17th-least expensive in the country. In addition, Seattle has a lot of affordable restaurants rated 4.5 stars or higher. 

Methodology

In order to determine the best places to celebrate Christmas, WalletHub compared the 100 most populated cities across five key dimensions: 1) Traditions & Fun, 2) Observance, 3) Generosity, 4) Shopping and 5) Costs. 

We evaluated those dimensions using 28 relevant metrics, which are listed below with their corresponding weights. Each metric was graded on a 100-point scale, with a score of 100 representing the most favorable conditions for celebrating Christmas.

Finally, we determined each city’s weighted average across all metrics to calculate its overall score and used the resulting scores to rank-order our sample. In determining our sample, we considered only the city proper in each case, excluding cities in the surrounding metro area. For metrics marked with an asterisk (*), we used the square root of the population to calculate the population size in order to avoid overcompensating for minor differences across cities.