Christmas Garden Dresden

This winter will be radiantly beautiful! From 20 November 2025, the Christmas Garden Dresden will open its doors for its seventh season in Pillnitz Palace & Park and await the public with around 30 colorful, sparkling and atmospheric installations on the artfully staged new circular path.

This year's Christmas Garden Dresden shines with festive opulence and fairytale magic. With more points of light than ever before and elaborately arranged colorful light displays, the Christmas Garden Dresden in one of Germany's most beautiful palace grounds looks like a fantastic Christmas wonderland. The newly designed tour fascinates guests with a variety of ultra-modern lighting techniques that offer surprises for the eye and inspiration to pause and reflect. With warm light and shimmering colors, the many attractions and lovingly arranged individual elements give visitors an extra dose of happiness and well-being in the dark season.
The Christmas Garden Dresden not only has a number of novelties in store for the public, but also, by popular demand, a reunion with much-loved classics from previous years in the form of the "Best of".

The heart of the palace park, the Pillnitz Pleasure Garden, is once again the crowning glory of the Christmas Garden Dresden this season. For the first time, the pleasure garden is programmed as a total work of art, and the palace façades, the contours of the ornamental beds, the fountain, the trees and four large colorful stars form a sophisticated choreography to an exclusively composed, baroque-style musical work by Burkhard Fincke under the title Lustgarten im Lichterglanz. The interplay of complex lighting effects and colors harmonizes congenially with the majestic splendour of this unique palace ensemble. The popular cathedral of light shines majestically and, with thousands of golden points of light in the 24-metre-long glittering tunnel, invites you to take the most beautiful photo moments for the first time since 2019.

There is no shortage of romantic motifs in the Christmas Garden Dresden, and several areas of the palace park are decorated with heartfelt light art, providing the perfect backdrop for marriage proposals. The water features, a water installation on the pond in the English Garden synchronized to music, offer a breathtaking sight in which the element seems to dance and is framed by the ambience of the illuminated English Pavilion.

Behind a small sparkling bridge, visitors reach the fairy kingdom, where they encounter elfish wonder creatures among the trees and a poetic voice accompanied by music tells of magical worlds of enchantment. Afterwards, Christmas delicacies and mulled wine next to the orangery invite you to take a tasty break before the next highlight awaits with the Christmas story artfully projected onto the Palm House.

Another classic feature of the Christmas Garden Dresden this year is the popular Glockenspiel, glowing ball chains programmed to music, where the most atmospheric selfies are taken. The magnificent sea of lights can also be experienced again this year and presents a new artistic enhancement with five integrated islands of light on 2,250 square meters with more than 45,000 points of light and the dynamically illuminated facade of the Bergpalais, which can be admired particularly well from a specially set up photo platform.

In the winter village at the Alte Wache, guests young and old can finally glide happily across the ice rink again for the first time since 2019 and finish off with a punch or sweet crépes.

For many guests from Dresden and the region, the walk along the approximately two-kilometre circular route of the Christmas Garden Dresden is now an indispensable pre-Christmas tradition that indulges all the senses. Immersing yourself in the overwhelming sea of splendor of the Christmas Garden Dresden together with family or friends is not only a unique experience, but also a precious moment to slow down in the midst of the general pre-Christmas hustle and bustle. When the sparkling glittering world of the Christmas Garden Dresden awakens after dark, the historic ambience of Pillnitz Palace & Park appears like a romantic winter oasis, where there will once again be plenty for young and old to discover.

From November 20, 2025 to January 11, 2026 , the Christmas Garden Dresden - organized by Christmas Garden Deutschland GmbH- invites you to marvel and enjoy almost every day in the open air (the Christmas Garden Dresden is closed from November 23-25, 2025, on December 1, 8, 24 & 31, 2025 and on January 5 & 6, 2026).