Orchard Road's Christmas lights go on at 7pm on 17 November, with a 6-metre Merli in a Santa hat and a Christmas Eve street party

Orchard Road has published its Christmas plans, and the dates are worth putting in the calendar now.

Pick a weeknight in the last week of November for the lights, and keep Christmas Eve for the party. Christmas on A Great Street, the Orchard Road Business Association's annual light-up, switches on at a Community Chest ceremony at Shaw House Urban Plaza from 7pm on Tuesday 17 November 2026, and the lights stay up until Sunday 3 January 2027. The theme is Season of Golden Joy, and the new piece is a giant inflatable Merli, the Singapore Tourism Board's mascot, about 6.2 metres tall in a Santa hat on the Shaw House facade, lit from 6.30pm to 6.30am. From 4 January he loses the hat and stays until 20 February, which is a long time for a merlion to sit on a roof.

The lights cost nothing to look at, and the association has mapped five photo spots: the Steps of Golden Joy at Shaw House, an illuminated arch and a lit Christmas scene outside ION Orchard, a mistletoe installation with Merli outside Ngee Ann City, and a golden Christmas tree outside Mandarin Gallery. A 3D projection show already plays on the front of Hilton Singapore Orchard from 7pm to 10pm nightly until 3 January, running to 12.30am with a countdown on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve. A LEGO Christmas pop-up follows from 13 November to 22 December.

The big night is Thursday 24 December. Orchard Road closes to traffic from the Paterson junction at ION Orchard to the Bideford junction at Ngee Ann City from 6pm to 2am, and the street party runs from 8pm to 12.15am on the road itself: Benjamin Kheng and Maia Lee headline, with DJ sets, mascots, food trucks and *SCAPE's Sleigh the Street programme of street dance, graffiti and circus. Kheng closes the night and leads the countdown to midnight.

Why it matters: the Orchard light-up is the one Christmas fixture nearly everyone in Singapore walks under, and this year it starts three days before schools break up on 20 November, so the first week is the quiet one. The Christmas Eve party is one of the few nights of the year you can stand in the middle of Orchard Road without a bus coming.

Our advice: for the switch-on, be at Shaw House by 6.30pm to see the stage rather than the back of a phone; otherwise go a week later on a Tuesday or Wednesday after 8pm and walk from Orchard MRT to Somerset in one go. For Christmas Eve, take the train, arrive before 9pm and agree a meeting point, because phones struggle in that crowd. Our Orchard Road guide has the air-conditioned shortcuts, and our Christmas page has everything else that is confirmed for December.

Good to know Light-up ceremony: Tuesday 17 November 2026, 7pm, Shaw House Urban Plaza, 350 Orchard Road; lights until Sunday 3 January 2027. Merli on Shaw House: 17 November–3 January in a Santa hat, lit 6.30pm–6.30am. Projection show: Hilton Singapore Orchard, 1 November–3 January, 7pm–10pm nightly (to 12.30am on 24 and 31 December). Christmas Eve street party: Thursday 24 December, 8pm–12.15am, road closed 6pm–2am, Orchard Road between the Paterson and Bideford junctions. No admission charge is listed for the lights or the party. Nearest MRT: Orchard; Somerset.

Want more of what’s new? Here’s everything else on the list.

Christmas on A Great Street 2026, Orchard Road | Shaw House Urban Plaza, 350 Orchard Road, Singapore 238868