Christmas in Mallorca: Palma’s lights, the Song of the Sibyl and the Three Kings

Palma’s Christmas lights

Palma switches on its Christmas lights on Saturday 21 November 2026, and this year the city has moved the opening and its Christmas park to the Parc de la Mar, at the foot of the cathedral and the Almudaina palace, with the festive programme running until 6 January. The Born, with its avenue of plane trees strung with thousands of lights, is the loveliest walk of the season, and Jaume III and the old-town lanes around it make an easy Christmas shopping evening.

Palma Old Town →

Nativity scenes and carols

Belens, nativity scenes, are a Mallorcan passion. The town hall on Plaça de Cort sets up a large one each year, and others appear in churches, cultural centres and markets across Palma, such as the Mercat de Santa Catalina. Choirs sing in the old-town squares through December; the city publishes the programme in late November.

The Song of the Sibyl

Mallorca’s most moving Christmas tradition is the Cant de la Sibil·la, sung at the matins on Christmas Eve in churches across the island, including Palma Cathedral. A boy or girl in a robe sings the medieval prophecy of the Last Judgement unaccompanied, flanked by altar servers with candles, and ends by tracing a cross in the air with a sword. UNESCO inscribed it on the list of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2010.

Our advice: arrive early at the cathedral or a village church on Christmas Eve; the matins are much loved and the pews fill quickly.

New Year and the Three Kings

Mallorca sees in the New Year Spanish-style, with twelve grapes eaten at the twelve chimes of midnight. On the evening of 5 January the Three Kings arrive by boat at the Moll Vell, Palma’s old quay, and parade through the city to the town hall on Plaça de Cort, scattering sweets for the children. The next morning, Epiphany, is when Spanish children open their presents.

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