The Best Ski Resorts for Christmas Week

The short answer

For Christmas week the high resorts are the dependable choices. Saas-Fee and Zermatt lead our Snow Score on 87, with Tignes and Verbier next. If the Christmas itself matters as much as the skiing, Zermatt, Val d'Isère and Saas-Fee combine both. No resort can promise snow in a particular week.

Snow on Christmas morning since 1996

Our Christmas Snow Report looks at how much snow was lying on the morning of 25 December at 65 weather stations in and above 47 Alpine resorts, each year from 1996 to 2025. On the slopes, 90% of Christmases from 1996 to 2010 had at least 30cm, against 84% since 2011. Low villages have changed more: a white Christmas in villages below 1,400 metres came 79% of the time before 2011 and 57% since. The worst year was 2015, when 16 of 24 slopes stations had less than 30cm.

Choosing between snow and atmosphere

The ranking above leads with snow. Most groups, though, are really choosing between three kinds of Christmas, and it helps to know which one you are after before you start comparing chalets.

A skiing Christmas

If the week has to deliver skiing whatever December does, go high. Val Thorens has its village at 2,300 metres and Cervinia at 2,050 metres, with lifts above both well past 3,000 metres. Neither is a pretty Christmas village, and neither pretends to be. What they offer is a strong chance of skiing from the door on the 25th.

A Christmas-card Christmas

If the picture in your head is timber chalets, a sleigh and a candlelit dinner, look at Lech, Cortina or Morzine. All three carry our top ratings for atmosphere or for non-skiers, and all three sit lower, so the skiing depends more on the weather. In a good year they are wonderful. In a thin one you will be riding lifts higher to find the better snow.

Both

A small group of resorts manage both, and they are the ones we suggest first to most people:

Resort	Village altitude	Highest lift	Snow Score	Christmas atmosphere
Zermatt	1,608 m	3,883 m	87	5/5
Saas-Fee	1,798 m	3,457 m	87	5/5
Val d'Isère	1,849 m	3,456 m	73	5/5
Cortina d'Ampezzo	1,224 m	2,930 m	62	5/5
Lech	1,444 m	2,650 m	45	5/5

The first three pair a real village with high lift-served terrain. Lech and Cortina are here for the Christmas, and should be chosen with the altitude in mind.

How the week actually runs

The Saturday changeover

Most chalet and hotel weeks run Saturday to Saturday. For Christmas 2026, Christmas Day is a Friday, so the Christmas week runs from Saturday 19 to Saturday 26 December. Arrive on the Saturday after Christmas and you have missed it but caught New Year week. That Saturday is also the first day of the French school Christmas holidays, which cover both Christmas and New Year, so expect the roads into the French Alps to be busy on arrival day. The Eurostar ski service to Moûtiers and Bourg-St-Maurice runs on winter Saturdays, which suits a Tarentaise changeover.

Christmas Eve

Across much of the Alps the 24th is the main event. In France it is the evening of the réveillon, the long Christmas Eve dinner, and many resorts stage a torchlit descent by the ski school instructors. In Austria Christmas starts around four in the afternoon, when the tree is lit and the Christkind brings the presents. Plan the day so that nobody is still on the hill when the evening begins.

Christmas Day

The lifts turn on Christmas Day, and many ski schools still teach. The slopes are often quiet, because so many people are having a long lunch rather than skiing. If your group is keen, it is a good morning to be first on the lift.

26 December

Boxing Day is a holiday in most of the Alps, under other names. Italy has Santo Stefano, a national holiday and a day for going out and visiting. Austria has Stefanitag. In Switzerland St Stephen's Day is a holiday in most cantons but not in Valais, where Zermatt, Saas-Fee and Verbier sit.

New Year week

The second week of the holiday is a different trip: busier, and by at least one account now busier than Christmas week. If the choice is open, Christmas week tends to be the calmer of the two.

Christmas by country

	France	Austria	Switzerland	Italy
Christmas Eve	Réveillon dinner, torchlit descents	Tree lit late afternoon, family evening	Book dinner early; Christmas Day a holiday in all cantons	Vigilia dinner, traditionally without meat
26 December	Ordinary day	Stefanitag holiday	Holiday in most cantons, not Valais	Santo Stefano holiday
Altitude pattern	Highest villages in this guide	Lower villages, a few high exceptions	Glacier terrain above Zermatt and Saas-Fee	Cervinia high, Dolomites lower
Access notes	Eurostar ski service to the Tarentaise on Saturdays	St Anton has its own station on the Arlberg railway	Zermatt by train from Visp	Cervinia links to Zermatt by lift

The country guides go further: France, Austria, Switzerland and Italy.

Who is in your group

The resort that suits a pair of strong skiers rarely suits a family with a four-year-old and a grandparent. If there are children, start with our family guide. If someone is learning, read the beginners' guide, because nursery slopes are the first terrain to struggle in a thin December. If someone is not skiing at all, the non-skiers' guide matters more than any Snow Score.

And if snow is the worry, is snow guaranteed at Christmas? explains what the numbers can and cannot tell you.

Sources

• timeanddate.com — Christmas Day 2026 falls on a Friday; Saturdays are 19 and 26 December 2026
• education.gouv.fr — French Christmas school holidays run from Saturday 19 December 2026 to Monday 4 January 2027, the same dates in all zones
• seat61.com — Eurostar ski service London to Moûtiers and Bourg-St-Maurice via Lille runs on Saturdays from 19 December
• snowmagazine.com — Lifts turn on Christmas Day and many ski schools still offer lessons; high-altitude resorts tend to have more early-season snow
• inghams.co.uk — Slopes are very quiet on Christmas Day
• alpineelements.co.uk — New Year week is very busy and becoming busier than Christmas week
• france24.com — French Réveillon de Noël is the main Christmas meal, eaten on the evening of 24 December
• whychristmas.com — Austrian Christmas starts around 4pm on Christmas Eve when the tree is lit; the Christkind brings presents on the 24th; the main meal is eaten on Christmas Eve, often fried carp
• en.wikipedia.org — 25 December and 26 December (Stefanitag) are public holidays in Austria
• en.wikipedia.org — St Stephen's Day, 26 December, is a national public holiday in Italy, a day for visiting family and nativity scenes
• publicholidays.ch — St Stephen's Day is a holiday across Switzerland except Geneva, Jura, Neuchâtel, Solothurn, Valais, Vaud and Zug
• en.wikipedia.org — Christmas Day is a public holiday in all Swiss cantons; St Stephen's Day is not observed in Valais
• zermatt.swiss — Zermatt is car-free; shuttle trains from Täsch at 20-minute intervals taking 12 minutes; 2,100 covered spaces at Täsch; about three and a half hours from Zurich Airport and four from Geneva or Basel
• en.wikipedia.org — St Anton station is on the Arlberg railway, with Railjet services towards Zürich, Innsbruck and Vienna
• les2alpes.com — Les 2 Alpes Christmas Eve ski show with ESF torchlight descent and fireworks from 6.30pm; Father Christmas parade on the 25th at 4.30pm; repeat show on New Year's Eve
• cervinia.it — Matterhorn Alpine Crossing linking Cervinia and Zermatt opened 1 July 2023, usable without skis; winter closure 7 January to 26 February 2027; Plateau Rosa station 3,458 m