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Ultimate Winter Break Activity Guide for Lansing Families
Staying home for winter break? Try these activity ideas to keep you busy.
Your Christmas Activities Checklist for 2025 – Lansing
Christmas Activities Checklist – How Many Will You Check Off This Year?
If you’re like me, you want to soak in as many magical holiday moments and Christmas events as you can.
This Christmas Activities Guide shows you the best places for Christmas lights, holiday shopping, reindeer visits, and more around Lansing.
Let’s load up your holiday season with fun and maybe create new holiday traditions in 2025!
☐ Experience the Magic of Silver Bells in the City
From the famous lighting of the Christmas Tree to a morning 5K, there’s an endless amount of merriment at Silver Bells in the City.
This year, Silver Bells in the City is celebrating 41 years of tradition on November 21, 2025
☐ Visit a “Real” Christmas Tree Farm
Heading out to cut your own real Christmas tree is more than just stomping through the woods, saw in hand. Nowadays, it’s an experience.
Many West Michigan Christmas tree farms offer bonus activities -and maybe hot cocoa – to make your visit cheery and bright.
Find a Christmas Tree Farm to Visit →
☐ See Santa & Take Pics, Too
You have a lot of opportunities to find Santa before Christmas. Whether at a parade or posing for pics, he’s not hard to find.
☐ Bundle Up for a Christmas Parade
Santa Parades, Christmas Parades, Nighttime Light Parades – Lansing has them all – and quite a few of them!
Put a Parade on Your Calendar →
☐ Chase Down the Best Christmas Lights
Chasing down the best Christmas lights is a favorite Christmas activity every season.
All you need is a car, maybe some warm jammies and hot cocoa in a thermos as you go on a light-spotting adventure.
And we’ve made it easy with a handy map of all the best-lit houses and downtowns around!
Or, take the road trip a bit further and enjoy either Drive Thru Christmas Light Shows or Walk Through Christmas Lights Displays all around Michigan.
Where to See Christmas Lights →
☐ Get Tickets to a Holiday Show
Are you a Nutcracker person? Or is the symphony more of your thing? Musicals? Improv?
Maybe you think Die Hard is a Christmas movie.
No matter your taste, there’s likely a Christmas production with your name on it.
See What’s Playing for the Holidays →
☐ Visit a Reindeer Farm
While Santa visits are often at the top of the Christmas Must Do List, visiting reindeer should be on it, too.
Visit details vary by destination, but each includes interactions with real, live reindeer. You can even pet the reindeer at some places.
You may see Santa, too!
☐ Find a Christmas Train to Watch or Ride
Trains at Christmastime are a quintessential holiday experience.
Snag a ticket for one of the train rides in Michigan – some are modeled after the famed Polar Express! Tickets go fast, so start looking as early as June to reserve your seats.
☐ Take a Road Trip to Look at the Trees & Watch the Light Show at Meijer Gardens
1000 E Beltline Ave NE, Grand Rapids, MI 49525
Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park deserves a stop at Christmastime. Their Christmas activities list alone is enough to keep many families busy and well worth the drive to Grand Rapids.
Reindeer, Santa, Carolers, a Christmas train, and now a light show are all reasons we want to be first in line at this venue.
More Lansing Family Fun
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Seeing Santa at the top of your holiday list? Use our Santa Finder to see Santa in Lansing this year at parades, the zoo, with traditional pictures, have breakfast with him, see reindeer, and more.
From Forest to Living Room: 13 Lansing Christmas Tree Farms You’ll Love – 2025
Cutting down your own Christmas tree is one of the best holiday traditions. Start making memories with your family at these 13 Lansing-Area Christmas Tree Farms plus extras like hot cocoa, Santa, horse-drawn carriage rides. bonfires, and more.
Lansing’s Holiday Glow: Christmas Tree Lighting Events & Dazzling Parades – 2025
Find Tree Lighting Ceremonies, Drive-Through Light Shows, Holiday Parades, Decorated Houses and Neighborhoods, Immersive Walk-Through Experiences, and Light Displays happening all around the Lansing area this year.
