San Diego, CA

List: Holiday events to feel festive this winter in San Diego

Published

1 year ago

December 4, 2024

Press Room

List: Holiday events to feel festive this winter in San Diego

What to Know

‘Tis the season for festive fun!
From San Diego’s December Nights to holiday-themed runs and bar takeovers, there’s something for everyone to celebrate this holiday season
This week: December Nights, San Diego Bay Parade of Lights, Gaslamp Pet Parade
For foodies, several neighborhoods are offering tasting events and holiday-themed bar takeovers
For those who want to add a little pep to their holiday steps, try one of the 5K or Santa runs below
Bundle up and hit an ice skating rink. See our list below

The days are getting colder and winter coats are being pulled out of the closet. It can only mean one thing: the holiday season is upon us. While it’s not likely we will have a white Christmas in San Diego, there are plenty of ways to feel festive for the holidays.

Find all things merry at these holiday festivals

December Nights
Dec. 6 and 7, times vary | Balboa Park | Free
The annual December Nights is back in Balboa Park. Join in the festivities this holiday season by visiting vendors, stopping at food stations and watching performers from 3-11 p.m. on Friday and 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Saturday. Since the event gathers quite a crowd, there are some rules that you should know before you go.

44th Annual Kwanzaa Celebration
Dec. 26 at 6:30 p.m. and Dec. 29 at 9 p.m. | 2100 Park Boulevard | Free
WorldBeat Cultural Center will be celebrating its 44th Annual Celebration with four of the seven days of Kwanzaa, an African American Holiday celebrated from the 26th of December to the 1st of January. The annual Kwanzaa holiday was created to celebrate and reaffirm family, community and culture. Each night will feature special guest speakers or performers, ceremonial candle lighting and libation with drumming, poetry readings by Johnnierenee Nia Nelson, free heirloom seeds for families and Karamu (the traditional feast and family get down).

Hanukkah Festival
Dec. 28 from 5:30-7:30 p.m. | Seaport Village | Free
Seaport Village is partnering with The Chabad of Downtown San Diego to host a family-friendly event featuring festivities like live music, performers and the traditional lighting of the menorah.

San Diego Lunar New Year
Jan. 24-26 from 11 a.m.-10 p.m. | 4455 Wightman Street | Free
This year is the 15th annual San Diego Lunar New Year Festival. The three-day event will feature a vibrant array of folk and traditional performances, arts and cultural exhibitions, lion dances, firecrackers and numerous family-friendly activities. A highlight of the festival will be the Cultural Village, which aims to recreate the traditional villager lifestyle of Southeastern Asia.

Grab your mittens and scarf and hit an ice skating rink

Rady Children’s Ice Rink
Nov. 21-Jan. 5 from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. | Point Loma | $15-20
Back for its 28th year is Rady Children’s Ice Rink. It’s open through Jan. 5, 2024, and the beneficiary? The rink will be raising money for “the Thriving After Cancer program at the Peckham Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders at Rady Children’s Hospital-San Diego.” Tickets for adults are $20 and $15 per child.

Frosted by the Sea
Nov. 21-Jan. 5, times vary | Coronado | $40
Skating by the Sea returns the weekend before Thanksgiving. This ice rink features views of the Pacific Ocean and benefits Make-A-Wish San Diego. General admission tickets are $40. Hotel guests, military, first responders and club members are $35.

See the full list of San Diego County ice skating rinks here:

Be joyful and jolly while watching a holiday parade

Gaslamp Pet Parade
Dec. 7 at 5 p.m. | Newport Avenue, Ocean Beach | Free
For more 40 years, the quaint surfing neighborhood of Ocean Beach has hosted a unique SoCal Holiday parade. On the first Saturday in December, Newport Avenue is lined with locals and visitors all eagerly awaiting the commencement at sunset.

Port of San Diego Bay Parade of Lights
Dec 8 and 15 at 5:30 p.m. | San Diego Bay | Free
The 54th annual Bay Parade of Lights will be entertaining bayfront crowds for two evenings this holiday season. This year’s theme is: “Peach on Earth.” Find the approximate arrival time of the parade at various locations along the route online. The parade takes approximately 1-1.5 hours to pass any given point along the parade route.

Find some holiday sparkle at these must-see performances

Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas at The Old Globe Theatre
Dec. 7-15, times vary | Balboa Park | $200+
Step into “Whoville” when you enter the plaza outside the Old Globe Theatre in Balboa Park. The festive decorations coincide with the production running in San Diego until Dec. 15.

Choir! Choir! Choir!
Dec. 8 at 6 p.m. | Epstein Family Amphitheater | Free
Choir! Choir! Choir! returns to San Diego to present: Un-Silent Night: An EPIC Holiday Sing-Along. Imagine yourself surrounded by hundreds of other voices, making your way through an unforgettable mix of holiday classics and seasonal pop gems. No singing experience is necessary. Dust off that ugly sweater, grab your friends and family and get ready to feel the glow of togetherness at a fully interactive holiday sing-along show like no other. Registration is required.

The Nutcracker
Dec. 13-Dec. 22 Showtimes vary | The Civic Theatre | $35+
Golden State Ballet proudly presents “The Nutcracker” at the Civic Theatre, featuring the choreography of Artistic Director Raul Salamanca. Step into a world of wonder as dazzling scenery and exquisite costumes bring Clara’s enchanting journey with her Nutcracker Prince to life. This beloved holiday tale is set to Tchaikovsky’s timeless score, performed live by the world-renowned San Diego Symphony. Prepare to be swept away by the magic in the two hour and 10 minute runtime.

Add a little spice for foodie (and bevvy) festivities

Cutwater Tasting Room
Nov. 21-Dec. 31, times vary | 9750 Distribution Ave. | Prices vary
Sip and savor the holiday season at Cutwater’s Tasting Room and Kitchen, that’s been transformed into Cutwater Lodge for this select time. Delight in the flavors of winter with our curated menu, featuring two flights and a lineup of winter-inspired cocktails, including traditional, spirit-free, warm and frozen choices. Discover seasonal merchandise, themed photo ops, and embrace the festive atmosphere of the lodge for a limited time only.

Top of the Hyatt Over the Top Holiday Lounge
Nov. 27 through Jan. 5 | 1 Market Place | Drink prices vary
The Over the Top Holiday Lounge will bring a snowy wonderland to sunny San Diego. Find a spot around the warm hearth, sip a cocktail in bunk beds that set the scene of a nostalgic family vacation and take advantage of the photo opportunities that showcase the epic views Top of The Hyatt is known for. No reservations required. Enjoy live holiday entertainment in the lounge every Tuesday and Friday night and Christmas Eve from 7-9 p.m.

Del Mar Village Winter Taste and Sip
Dec. 8 from 1 – 4 p.m. | Downtown Del Mar Village | $49+
Stroll the festively decorated streets as you enjoy culinary creations from our award-winning Del Mar Village restaurants, sips from local beverage partners at “Sip Stops” inside downtown Del Mar businesses, live music and other holiday happenings as part of the North Pole by the Sea day of family-friendly festivities. Both “Taste Only” and “Taste and Sip” tickets are for sale.

Taste ‘n’ Tinis
Dec. 12 from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. | Hillcrest | $30
Guests will have a fabulous time as they stroll the holiday-light-decorated shops of Hillcrest with martini in hand. This food-tasting event will dish up appetizers, small bites and desserts alongside mini specialty cocktails.

A new holiday pop-up bar opened its doors in Hillcrest called “Sleigh Bar,” which offers a new menu featuring holiday cocktails and mocktails.

Make the night merry and bright at these holiday lightings

“All That Jazz” Lightshow Spectacular
Nov. 21 – Jan. 5 runs every 30 minutes from 5 – 9 p.m. nightly | Hotel Del Coronado | Free
The grove of towering pine trees on the Founders Lawn is the scene of a dynamic 10-minute light show orchestrated to lively holiday jazz music. The experience captivates guests with a finale of snow flurries. Showcased is the Norfolk Pine originally made famous in 1904 as the world’s first electrically lit outdoor Christmas tree.
While at the Hotel Del, don’t miss several other holiday events.

Menorah Lighting
Dec. 26 from 5-8 p.m. | Liberty Station | Free
Head to Liberty Station’s Central Promenade to commemorate the first night of Hanukkah. The family-friendly festivity will include entertainment, packaged treats and the traditional lighting of the menorah.

Coastal Christmas Holiday Light Spectacular
Select dates in December from 4-9 p.m. | Del Mar Fairgrounds | $20+
The iconic Del Mar Fairgrounds get transformed with twinkling lights, holiday cheer and delicious snacks and drinks. Enjoy the holiday light trail, Glice skating, Holiday Wine Walk, Frosty’s Fun Zone and more.

Jingle Jets Holiday Lighting Celebration
Select dates Nov. 22-Dec. 23 from 5:30-9:30 p.m. | USS Midway Museum | $18+
Step aboard for a magical evening at the USS Midway Museum’s 2nd Annual Jingle Jets Holiday Lighting Celebration. See Midway transform into a festive holiday wonderland on the sea, dazzling from bow to stern with 750,000 twinkling lights. Whimsical music, tasty treats and festive fun for the whole family await.

Lightscape at San Diego Botanic Garden
Select dates in November through January, Timed entry | Encinitas | $13+
The Lightscape returns for its third year with over 1 million twinkling lights and new installations. Walk the 1-mile path around the garden stopping for seasonal treats like Chicken Pot Pie Handpies, Smokey BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwiches and a Giant Bavarian Pretzel with Cheese Sauce. Sip on festive cocktails like the Holiday Sparkler, the Whiskey Warmer or try a boozy take on hot chocolate and hot mulled cider. Tickets are required.

Spread holiday cheer: Runs and races to join

San Diego Santa Run 5K and 1 Mile Race
Dec. 14 Race times vary | 912 Garnet Avenue | $34+
Join the sea of Santas filling the streets of Pacific Beach for the 12th annual San Diego Santa Run.

Holiday Half Marathon
Dec. 14 from 7:30 a.m. to 10:45 a.m. | 14455 Penasquitos Road | $160+
The 13.1-mile course starts on Penasquitos Drive and Carmel Mountain Road, then travels southwest along Carmel Mountain Road, along the 56 bike path and finishes at Torrey Pines State Beach.

Port of San Diego Game Day 5K Run/Walk
Dec. 27 at 9:45 a.m. | Downtown | $20+
Run or walk along San Diego’s harborfront, starting at Harbor and Ash. Athletes will go past an approximate 10,000 cheering spectators. Runners, families and spectators can watch the parade, which features colorful floats, bands and huge inflatable characters. All participants receive a finisher medal and awards will be given to the top three male and female 5K finishers in each age division. T-shirts and goody bags will be handed out at the finish line area. Join the post-race party, featuring live music and lots of extra snacks.

Source link

San Diego, CA

San Diego Zoo Safari Park’s Elephant Valley: Get closer to elephants

Published

33 minutes ago

March 2, 2026

Press Room

San Diego Zoo Safari Park’s Elephant Valley: Get closer to elephants

Todd Martens
| Los Angeles Times

San Diego — Before we see elephants at Elephant Valley in the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, we come face to face with destruction, only the wreckage is beautiful. A long, winding path takes guests around and under felled trees. Aged gray tree hunks form arches, for instance, over bridges that tower over clay-colored paths with hoof prints.

The design is meant to reorient us, to take us on a trail walked not by humans but traversed and carved by elephants, a creature still misunderstood, vilified and hunted for its cataclysmic-like ability to reshape land, and sometimes communities.

“It starts,” says Kristi Burtis, vice president of wildlife care for the Safari Park, “by telling the story that elephants are ecosystem engineers.”

Elephant Valley will open March 5 as the newest experience at the Escondido park, its aim to bring guests closer than ever to the zoo’s eight elephants, which range in age from 7 to 36, while more heavily focusing on conservation. The centerpiece of the 13-acre-plus parkland is a curved bridge overlooking a savanna, allowing elephants to walk under guests. But there are also nooks such as a cave that, while not previewed at a recent media event, will allow visitors to view elephants on their level.

In a shift from, say, the Safari Park’s popular tram tour, there are no fences and visible enclosures. Captive elephants remain a sometimes controversial topic, and the zoo’s herd is a mix of rescues and births, but the goal was to create a space where humans are at once removed and don’t impede on the relative free-roaming ability of the animals by keeping guests largely elevated. As an example of just how close people can get to the herd, there was a moment of levity at the event when one of the elephants began flinging what was believed to be a mixture of dirt and feces up onto the bridge.

“Our guests are going to be able to see the hairs on an elephant,” Burtis says. “They can see their eyes. They can see the eyelashes. They can see how muscular their trunks are. It’s really going to be a different experience.”

Elephant Valley, complete with a multistory lodge with open-air restaurants and bars, boasts a natural design that isn’t influenced by the elephant’s African home so much as it is in conversation with it. The goal isn’t to displace us, but to import communal artistry — Kenyan wood and beadwork can be found in the pathways, resting spaces and more — as a show of admiration rather than imitation.

“We’re not going to pretend that we’re taking people to Africa,” says Fri Forjindam, now a creative executive with Universal’s theme parks but previously a lead designer on Elephant Valley via her role as a chief development officer at Mycotoo, a Pasadena-based experiential design firm.

“That is a slippery slope of theming that can go wrong really fast,” she adds. “How do we recognize where we are right now, which is near San Diego? How do we populate this plane with plants that are indigenous to the region? The story of coexistence is important. We’re not extracting from Africa, we’re learning. We’re not extracting from elephants, we’re sharing information.”

But designing a space that is elephant-first yet also built for humans presented multiple challenges, especially when the collaborating teams were aiming to construct multiple narratives around the animals. Since meetings about Elephant Valley began around 2019, the staff worked to touch on themes related to migration and conservation. And there was also a desire to personalize the elephants.

“Where can we also highlight each of the elephants by name, so they aren’t just this huge herd of random gray creatures?” Forjindam says. “You see that in the lodge.”

That lodge, the Mkutano House — a phrase that means “gathering” in Swahili — should provide opportunities for guests to linger, although zoo representatives say reservations are recommended for those who wish to dine in the space (there will also be a walk-up, to-go window). Menus have yet to be released, but the ground floor of the structure, boasting hut-like roofing designed to blend into the environment, features close views of the elephant grazing pool as well as an indoor space with a centerpiece tree beneath constellation-like lighting to mimic sunrises and sunsets.

Throughout there are animal wood carvings and beadwork, the latter often hung from sculptures made of tree branches. The ceiling, outfitted with colorful, cloth tapestries designed to move with the wind, aims to create less friction between indoor and outdoor environments.

There are, of course, research and educational goals of the space as well. The Safari Park works, for instance, with the Northern Rangelands Trust and Loisaba Conservancy in Kenya, with an emphasis on studying human-elephant conflict and finding no-kill resolutions. Nonprofits and conservation groups estimate that there are today around 415,000 elephants in Africa, and the African savanna elephant is listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Studies of the zoo’s young elephants is shared with the Reteti Elephant Sanctuary in the hopes of delivering care to elephant youth to prevent orphanage. Additionally, the Safari Park has done extensive examination into the endotheliotropic herpes virus. “The data that we collect from elephants here, you can’t simply get from elephants in the wild,” Burtis says.

One of the two entrances to Elephant Valley is outfitted with bee boxes; bees are known to be a natural elephant deterrent and can help in preventing the animals from disrupting crops or communities. To encourage more natural behavior, the plane is outfitted with timed feeders in an attempt to encourage movement throughout the acreage and establish a level of real-life unpredictability in hunting for resources. Water areas have been redesigned with ramps and steps to make it easier for the elephants to navigate.

With Elephant Valley, Forjindam says the goal was to allow visitors to “observe safely in luxury — whatever that is — but not from a position of power, more as a cohabitor of the Earth, with as much natural elements as possible. It’s not to impose dominance. Ultimately, it needed to feel natural. It couldn’t feel like a man-made structure, which is an antiquated approach to any sort of safari experience where animals are the product, a prize. In this experience, this is the elephant’s home.”

And the resulting feel of Elephant Valley is that we, the paying customers, are simply their house guests.

Source link

San Diego, CA

Man fatally struck by hit-and-run vehicle in San Diego

Published

13 hours ago

March 2, 2026

Press Room

Man fatally struck by hit-and-run vehicle in San Diego

A man in the Mission Bay Park community of San Diego was fatally struck Sunday morning by a hit-and run vehicle, authorities said.

The victim was also struck by a second vehicle and that motorist stayed at the scene to cooperate with officers, the San Diego Police Department reported.

The initial crash occurred at about 2:20 a.m. Sunday in the area of West Mission Bay and Sea World drives.

The pedestrian was in the southbound lanes of the 2000 block of West Mission Bay Drive when he was struck by a silver vehicle also in the southbound lanes. That vehicle fled the scene, continuing southbound, police said.

A 28-year-old man driving his vehicle southbound ran over the downed pedestrian.

“That driver remained at the scene and is not DUI,” according to a police statement. “The pedestrian was pronounced deceased at the scene.”

Anyone with information regarding the initial crash was urged to call Crime Stoppers at 888-580-8477.

Source link

San Diego, CA

Here are the 9 San Diego County communities that set or tied heat records

Published

1 day ago

March 1, 2026

Press Room

Here are the 9 San Diego County communities that set or tied heat records

San Diego County is known for having wet, cold weather in February. But it had numerous hot spells this year. And when the month ended on Saturday a high pressure system produced heat that broke or tied temperature records in nine communities from the desert to the sea, the National Weather Service said.

The most notable temperature occurred in Borrego Springs, which reached 99, five degrees higher than the previous record for Feb. 28, set in 1986. The 99 reading is also the highest temperature ever recorded in Borrego in February.

Escondido reached 95, tying a record set in 1901.

El Cajon reached 92, three degrees higher than the record set in 2009.

Ramona topped out at 88, five degrees higher than the record set in 2009.

Alpine hit 88, four degrees higher the record set in 1986.

Campo reached 87, four degrees higher than the record set in 1999.

Vista hit 86, four degrees higher than the record set in 2020.

Chula Vista reached 84, one degree higher than the record set in 2020.

Lake Cuyamaca rose to 76, four degrees higher than the record set in 1986.

Forecasters say the weather is not likely to broadly produce new highs on Sunday. Cooler air is moving to the coast, and on Monday, San Diego’s high will only reach 67, a degree above normal.

Source link