December in Haifa: Where the Whole City Lights Up at Once
You step off the Carmelit or walk down from the German Colony and the air smells of sufganiyot frying and Arabic coffee brewing at the same stall. Strings of lights run along the Hadar streets and through Wadi Nisnas, where the alleys are packed with families moving between a church service, a concert and a market table. This is Haifa in late December — a city where Christmas, Hanukkah and the Holiday of Holidays festival overlap into one long, loud, delicious season. For a Catholic or Protestant visitor, Boxing Day (December 26) falls right in the middle of it all — the day after Christmas Mass, when the city is still humming and the festival programme is in full swing.
Join the Holiday of Holidays Festival — Haifa's December Backbone
Every December, Beit Hagefen – The Arab-Jewish Cultural Center, together with the Haifa Municipality, runs the Holiday of Holidays Festival. The 2025 edition was the 32nd annual, held December 11–31 with more than 30 events. The 2026 edition will follow the same pattern — late December, citywide — though the exact dates and programme are announced closer to the time. What you can count on is the shape of it: performances, exhibitions, concerts, plays, family events, lectures, workshops and tours, at Beit Hagefen and at venues across Haifa. For a Boxing Day visitor, this is the single most useful thing to know: the city's cultural calendar is deliberately built around this period, and much of it is free or open to drop-in visitors.
- Beit Hagefen — the festival's home base and the place to pick up a programme.
- Hadar and Wadi Nisnas — the neighbourhoods where the festival spills into the streets, with markets, food stalls and performances.
- Check haifahag.com — the festival's own site (haifahag.com/Index.aspx?lang=1) for the current year's listings.
Concerts Worth Planning Your Evening Around
The festival's concert programme is where Haifa's mixed Jewish and Arab character comes through most clearly — classical, folk, flamenco and choral music, often in the same week. The 2025 edition gives you a reliable sense of what to expect in 2026:
- "Psalm for Christmas" — the traditional opening concert, with works by Mozart, Bach, Vivaldi, Gabriel Fauré and Handel, plus Christmas carols and Hanukkah songs. If you want one event that speaks directly to a Christian visitor's December, this is it.
- "A Song Dispels the Darkness" — folk songs and regional women's singing traditions in various languages, performed by the RANA Choir, a women's Jewish-Arab choir from Jaffa.
- "Between East and West – Love Songs Without Borders" — singer-actor Akram Odeh performing in Hebrew, Arabic, English, French and Spanish.
- "SUEÑOS / Ahlam / Dreams" — flamenco in Spanish and Arabic with dancer Michal Ben Zvi and singer Miriam Toukan.
- "Festive Holiday of Holidays Concert" — the Orpheus Association with the Haifa Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Ronen Borshevsky and Nizar Alkhater, including Mozart's Coronation Mass.
Ticket details and exact 2026 dates are published by the festival and the Haifa Symphony Orchestra nearer the time. Book early — these are the nights the city turns out.
Eat Your Way Through Wadi Nisnas and the German Colony
Boxing Day in Haifa is a eating day as much as a walking day. The markets and bakeries around Wadi Nisnas and the German Colony stay busy through the festival, and the mix on offer reflects the city: Christmas sweets alongside Hanukkah doughnuts, Arab pastry alongside Eastern European Jewish baking. Plan to graze rather than sit down to one long meal.
- Wadi Nisnas market — the festival's street-level heart; stalls, spice shops and bakeries, busiest in the evenings.
- The German Colony — the main street below the Bahá'í Gardens, lined with restaurants and cafés that fill up during the festival period.
- Hadar — the commercial centre where the city's everyday food life runs alongside the festival programme.
Seasonal food in Haifa in late December means both traditions at once: sufganiyot (jelly doughnuts) for Hanukkah, and Christmas cakes, cookies and warm spiced drinks in the Christian and Arab bakeries. The festival's family events and workshops often include food, so check the programme for what's on the day you're there.
What Boxing Day Itself Looks Like
December 26 in Haifa is not a public holiday in Israel, so the city runs normally — which is exactly what makes it good. Churches in the Arab-Christian neighbourhoods hold services around Christmas, and Boxing Day falls within the Holiday of Holidays run, so the festival programme is still active. Expect markets open, concerts and family events on the schedule, and streets in Wadi Nisnas and the German Colony busy into the evening. Rather than a single parade or fireworks display tied to the date, Haifa's December celebration is a month-long, distributed thing — so treat Boxing Day as one good day inside a larger festival, and build your plan from the programme rather than from a fixed citywide event.
Getting Around and Making a Day of It
Haifa is built on a slope, and the neighbourhoods you'll want — Hadar, Wadi Nisnas, the German Colony — sit close together on the lower and middle city, walkable in an afternoon. The Carmelit underground funicular connects the port level to the upper city if you're staying on the Carmel. From the German Colony you can walk up to the Bahá'í Gardens terraces for the view back over the port, then drop into Wadi Nisnas for the festival. If you want a day trip, the festival's own programme includes tours, which is the simplest way to see parts of the city with context. For a longer excursion, Haifa's position on the northern coast puts the Galilee and Acre within reach by road or rail — but with the festival running through December 31, you may find you'd rather stay in town.
Start with the festival: check haifahag.com for the 2026 programme as it's published, note the dates, and book the concert you want first — "Psalm for Christmas" and the Haifa Symphony Orchestra night are the ones that fill. Then build the rest of your Boxing Day around Wadi Nisnas and the German Colony, on foot, with an appetite. Haifa in late December is a city that has been doing this for more than three decades; you're not inventing a visit, you're joining one.