This year, celebrate the season with a new family tradition: taking a vacation that makes the holidays actually feel like a vacation. Whether it’s Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, or New Year’s Eve, there’ a California hotel where the cooking, light-hanging, or sometimes even the package-wrapping are done for you. Set aside enough time to build a gingerbread house (and then let someone else clean up afterward). Take the kids to meet Santa, and then step outside to ice skate, ski—or, depending on your destination, even stroll on the beach.
Start planning a blissful holiday at one of these California hotels and inns, listed north to south:
Harvest your own Christmas tree at McCloud Mercantile Hotel, McCloud
This Siskiyou County inn offers a winter wonderland experience thanks in part to easy access to nearby Mt. Shasta Board & Ski Park. The Shasta Cascade hotel also offers a range of winter getaway packages, including its Tree Cutting special that includes a permit and map of available trees, as well as an overnight stay with breakfast, packed lunches, and cookies. The hotel also has its own onsite candy shop.
Celebrate near the redwoods at Benbow Historic Inn, Garberville
This 1926 Tudor-style inn in Humboldt County exudes ambience this time of year thanks to its Toyland Christmas Celebration and its location near the Avenue of the Giants. The inn gets decked out with lights and a 15-foot animated teddy bear tree, and there’s an onsite shop to make your last-minute shopping easy. Christmas Day brings a five-course dinner and entertainment, followed by a New Year’s Eve Dinner Dance.
Santa’s Torchlight Parade at Granlibakken, Tahoe City
With its chalet-style decor and a famous sledding hill, the Granlibakken resort in Tahoe City is an idyllic holiday destination. Join the Torchlight Parade on Christmas Eve, when Santa and his elves arrive on a Sno-Cat, then feast on the resort’s Christmas Dinner on the 25th. Stay here over New Year’s to enjoy a nighttime sledding party with food and drink.
Build gingerbread houses and make dreidels at Montage, Healdsburg
Head to this Sonoma County resort during the holiday season and let the kids build gingerbread houses at the Santa's Workshop children's program. The Montage celebrates with a wide range of activities from Thanksgiving through New Year’s—such as decorating dreidels, making ornaments, and feasting on winter s’mores. Down in Laguna Beach, the Montage Laguna Beach celebrates too, with a variety of special dinners, teas, and entertainment.
Concerts, dinners, and wreath-making at the Inn at Park Winters, Winters
Bliss out at this 1865 farmhouse inn on a flower farm in Winters during the holiday season. Come on select evenings in November and December for a holiday season concert paired with a four-course dinner or come during the day to create gifts or centerpieces while also making the most of the farm’s floral bounty during the seasonal wreath-making sessions.
Celebrate among the vineyards at Vinarosa Resort, Santa Rosa
Decorate cookies, make a wreath, or just relax at this Sonoma County resort surrounded by 92 acres of Russian River Valley vineyards. Tuck in for festive meals—Christmas Eve dinner, Christmas brunch, and then New Year’s Eve—that showcase local ingredients. The Christmas Eve dinner at its John Ash restaurant typically features Dungeness crab, fresh-caught halibut, Point Reyes cheeses, and Sonoma-raised duck.
Teddy Bear Teas at The Ritz-Carlton San Francisco, San Francisco
Bring your tea party fans plus their stuffed-bear friends to this grand tradition at the Ritz-Carlton in San Francisco’s Nob Hill. The special kids’ menu offers hot chocolate, assorted sandwiches, scones, and sweets, while adults can enjoy traditional tea cuisine and adult beverages. Everyone can enjoy the afternoon show, typically starring an elf and his giant teddy bear sidekick, then take a picture with the bear afterward.
The Gingerbread Mansion at the Fairmont San Francisco, San Francisco
During the holiday season, the stately Fairmont San Francisco embraces Victorian architecture—and in an edible form at that. Inside the lobby, the hotel’s pastry and engineering teams always create a two-story Victorian gingerbread house that's about 25 feet high and 35 feet wide, made with roughly 8,000 house-made gingerbread bricks covered with royal icing and candy. To get an up-close look, book a private dinner for up to eight people inside the house.
This time of year, you can also partake in one of the daily Holiday Teas, enjoy holiday fun at the classic tiki bar Tonga Room & Hurricane Bar, or book the Santa Suite package, which includes a stay in a decked-out luxury suite.
Après village and skating at Four Seasons Silicon Valley, East Palo Alto
Stay at this Four Seasons on the San Francisco Peninsula for a ski chalet experience without the snow drifts. Skate on the outdoor skating rink on weekend evenings, pose for pictures on the winter sleigh with a snow-globe backdrop, and graze at a food truck with a menu inspired by après-ski cuisine from around the world. For an upgrade, book the semi-private chalet seating. The holiday lasts a delightfully long time too, running on select dates from November into January.
Holiday feasts and a Scotch lounge at The Ritz-Carlton Half Moon Bay, Half Moon Bay
This Ritz-Carlton in Half Moon Bay offers roving carolers and a range of family-friendly activities and cheer during the season, such as a gingerbread-house decorating workshop, afternoon teas and a Scotch lounge. Its onsite restaurant Navio does its own celebrating with special meals from Thanksgiving to New Year’s, plus a seven-course tasting menu on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day featuring dishes like Christmas Canelon with Perigord Truffle and Rosewood Ranch Wagyu Ribeye.
Play outside and enjoy a decorated suite at The Quail, Carmel Valley
Enjoy a decorated suite at this sprawling resort in Carmel Valley, just inland from Carmel-by-the-Sea, which offers year-round fun including golf, pickleball, and tennis, as well as a Land Rover Experience Driving School. During the holiday season, the hotel offers a holiday special that includes a decked-out suite, a curated welcome amenity and keepsake, as well as a $125 resort credit to be used toward dining or golf.
Immerse yourself in decor at the Madonna Inn, San Luis Obispo
The San Luis Obispo home of the pink champagne cake manages to add even more color to its restaurants during the holidays: Think lots of flocked trees, reindeer statues, and sumptuous feasts, whether you are staying at the hotel or not. Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day all have their own menus, with an array of turkey, prime rib, and even duck, plus more than a dozen cake or pie options for dessert.
Gingerbread, hikes, and movie nights at Terranea, Rancho Palos Verdes
This Rancho Palos Verdes resort, tucked into the bluffs of Los Angeles County’s South Bay, celebrates the holidays with a pop-up lobby lounge called the Gingerbread Hut plus a special one-day outdoor party with snow. The family-friendly hotel also offers 20-plus activities in November and December: special hikes, movie nights, ornament-decorating. Stay in a resort villa, casita, or bungalow in December and you can have the place decorated too.
Festival of Lights at the Mission Inn Hotel & Spa, Riverside
If you seek out light displays during this time of year, the Mission Inn Hotel & Spa in Riverside is your dream holiday hotel. The 1876 National Historic California Landmark exudes old-world grandeur with its turrets, domes, and flying buttresses, but at this time of year, the ambience goes up a few notches, thanks to roughly 10 million lights and 400 animated figures (Nov. 21–Jan. 3). The hotel also offers several seasonal specials that bundle different kinds of holiday cheer.
It’s a Wonderful Life vibes at La Quinta Resort, Greater Palm Springs
Frank Capra is rumored to have written It’s a Wonderful Life during one of his many stays at this Greater Palm Springs resort. So every year, the Spanish-style La Quinta Resort & Club morphs, as best it can, into a cactus-dotted version of Bedford Falls, the fictional town where Jimmy Stewart’s George Bailey has his holiday awakening. Carolers often stroll the grounds and revelers can roast chestnuts at firepits, look at the decorated windows, and listen for the occasional bell ringing. On some nights you might even get to watch the 1946 classic or other holiday movies on the resort lawn.
This year, the resort is celebrating its 100th anniversary, so expect the celebrations to be bigger and more dazzling than ever.
Holiday decor and characters at the Disneyland Resort Hotels, Anaheim
During the holiday season, the theme parks at Disneyland Resort are festooned with lights, baubles, and a wealth of holiday goodies. The Anaheim resort’s onsite hotels offer their own holiday ambience, plus up to 20 percent off with a holiday deal.
Check out the enormous Arts and Crafts–style gingerbread house at the Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel & Spa, and the kitschy decor and drinks (like the Mele Kaliki-Mocha) at Trader Sam’s Enchanted Tiki Bar at the Disneyland Hotel. At Thanksgiving, some of the hotels’ restaurants do their own feasts, too, often with a buffet and strolling characters.
Feasts and spa treatments at the Balboa Bay Resort, Newport Beach
Don’t want winter weather for the holidays? This Forbes Four-Star, AAA Four-Diamond resort in Newport Beach offers holiday fun for people who like twinkling lights but also enjoy paddleboards, Duffy boats, and an Olympic-sized pool. Feast on turkey, seafood, and the trimmings at the Thanksgiving buffet on Nov. 26, or enjoy the resort’s holiday dinners and brunches during December.
From Dec. 1–12, gift yourself some of the deals on treatments and products at the spa’s 12 Days of Spalidays. From Dec. 16–20, stay here to get a prime viewing location for the famed Newport Beach Christmas Boat Parade.
