Zoo Drive Has Two Holiday Light Shows This December, and They Keep Almost the Same Calendar

The North Pole Railway is new at Travel Town, 5200 Zoo Dr., this season, and it opens on Thanksgiving weekend. L.A. Zoo Lights is already scheduled from November 20 through January 10. Put the two schedules side by side and they're both open on almost every night they share.

The railway runs 25 nights between November 27 and December 24. Zoo Lights is also open on 21 of them. Both close on the same three Mondays, and the train runs alone on only four nights. If you live a few minutes from the park's Los Feliz entrance, those few nights are where the planning happens.

The calendar, week by week

The North Pole Railway comes from Thirteenth Floor Entertainment Group and runs select nights from November 27 to December 24. It's closed on Mondays, except December 21, as NBC Los Angeles reported. According to the organizer's ticketing help page, it's open 5 to 10 p.m. on Friday-through-Sunday stretches and the run-up to Christmas, 5 to 9 p.m. on the midweek nights, and 3 to 8 p.m. on Christmas Eve. Zoo Lights is closed November 26 and 30; December 1, 7, 14, 15, 16, 24, 25 and 31; and January 4 through 7.

From November 27 through December 24, there isn't a single night when Zoo Lights is open and the train is dark. Every closure on the zoo's side during that window lands on a Monday the railway also takes off, or on a night the railway runs by itself.

Four nights when only the train is running

On these nights, Zoo Lights is closed and only the North Pole Railway is lighting up Zoo Drive:

1. Tuesday, December 1, 5 to 9 p.m.
2. Tuesday, December 15, 5 to 9 p.m.
3. Wednesday, December 16, 5 to 9 p.m.
4. Thursday, December 24, 3 to 8 p.m.

Christmas Eve is the most unusual of the four. Zoo Lights is closed, and Griffith Observatory is on special hours that day, noon to 5 p.m. So the train's 3 p.m. opening covers the afternoon and keeps going for three hours after the Observatory closes.

Two December nights at the zoo have their own programs. December 8 is Sensory-Inclusive Night and December 17 is Pride Night, and the railway is also open on both. The zoo doesn't allow reentry during Zoo Lights except on December 8.

The two tickets work very differently

Because the shows are open on the same nights, the way you buy each ticket matters as much as the date you pick.

North Pole Railway tickets are sold online only. There's no box office at Travel Town and no walk-up sales. Public sales opened November 4 at noon. Your ticket is good for any arrival time during that night's hours, not a set slot, and the organizer suggests planning on about 90 minutes, longer with add-ons. On the booking calendar, dates showed at $26.77, which includes $6.78 in fees. The VIP tier adds a Santa photo, a ride on the miniature train and a VIP line.

Zoo Lights prices change with the calendar. On Value Weekdays (November 23–25 and December 2, 3 and 8–10), adults 13 and up pay $29 and children 2 to 12 pay $19. Value Weekends (November 20–22, December 4–6 and January 2, 3 and 8–10) cost $32 and $22. Holiday Peak nights (November 27–29, December 11–13, 17–23 and 26–30, and January 1) cost $35 and $25. Children under 2 get in free. Members pay $5 less per ticket on each tier. Unlike the railway, the zoo runs a box office on event nights from 5:45 to 8:45 p.m. Parking is free, the skating rink is a separate ticket, and the zoo uses two entry times to manage parking and capacity. The Safari Shuttle doesn't run during Zoo Lights, but manual and electric wheelchairs can be rented first come, first served.

The price tiers also tell you something about overlap. Thanksgiving weekend, December 11–13 and December 17–23 are Holiday Peak nights at the zoo, and the railway is open on all of them. If you're hoping for a quieter Zoo Lights visit, the Value Weekday dates in early December are the zoo's lowest-priced nights, but the train is running on every one of them too. Opening week, November 20 through 25, is the only stretch of Zoo Lights before the railway opens.

Where the season starts and ends

Zoo Drive's December has an opening act on Saturday, November 14. Griffith Observatory is hosting a public star party from 2 to 9:45 p.m. and a Sunset Walk & Talk from 3:30 to 6 p.m. that day. The Observatory repeats both in December, with the star party on December 19 and the walk on December 21. Its regular hours are noon to 10 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. on weekends, and it's closed on Mondays. It's closed November 26 and December 25, with shortened noon-to-5 hours on December 24 and 31.

In daylight, the Griffith Park & Southern Railroad keeps its own schedule. Its seasonal hours table lists 10 a.m. to 3:45 p.m. from November 1 to mid-January, so the daytime miniature train has stopped for the day before the North Pole Railway opens at 5.

After Christmas, Zoo Lights has the evenings to itself. It's open December 26 through 30, January 1 through 3 and January 8 through 10, and closed on New Year's Eve and January 4 through 7. Those late dates fall after the railway's run ends on Christmas Eve, and January 2, 3 and 8–10 are priced as Value Weekends.

The park road into all of this has changed since last December. In May 2026, city officials held a ceremony for Phase 3 of the Griffith Park Safety and Active Transportation Improvement Project, which brought protected bike lanes, speed humps, new signs and traffic calming to Crystal Springs Drive, as KTLA reported. The same phase included Caltrans reworking a nearby 5 Freeway on/off-ramp. Officials said the project is meant to slow vehicles and cut down on cut-through traffic in the park. That makes this the first holiday season with the new layout in place.

The one ride that stays still

The park's oldest holiday-season ride won't be part of any of this. The Griffith Park merry-go-round turned 100 this year, and its 66 wooden horses stand still near the Ranger Station. According to the Los Angeles Times, it has been closed since the COVID-19 pandemic except for a short run in 2022. The city bought it last year for $1 million, and the Times reports the restoration is expected to take at least two years and cost millions. The paper also told a story from a recent open house about a visitor who remembered the carousel saving her family's Christmas decades ago.

"This is the jewel in the middle of the city," Tracy James of the Department of Recreation and Parks, who is leading the restoration effort, told the Los Angeles Times.

Closer to Los Feliz Boulevard, the Los Feliz Improvement Association said in October that it plans to have the Leif Erikson bronze and the Berlin Bear, near Los Feliz Boulevard and Fern Dell Drive, cleaned and conserved in the coming months. Between the merry-go-round and the sculptures, two of the park's older landmarks are getting long-term care this winter while Zoo Drive gets its new holiday train.

At The Xuereb Group, we keep calendars like this one for the Los Feliz neighbors we work with, because knowing which nights the park is busy is part of knowing the neighborhood. If you're weighing a move near Griffith Park or just want to talk about what's changing on the east side, schedule a complimentary consultation with our team.