
Already looming on the horizon of Madrid (and its mountains) the last month of 2024. And with it, the balance of the year that is vanishing and the review of all that handful of big promises we made in January. Maybe you couldn’t keep them all. No matter: here we give you a more pleasant challenge : Christmas, winter, cultural and hedonistic proposals to eat your grapes with a good (better) conscience.
These December plans in Madrid cover endless possibilities that are not at odds, in any way, with the fantasies of Christmas. Put on your hat, your boots and take to the streets of a city dressed in lights.
Table Of Contents
- Marvel: Universe of Super Heroes (all month)
- The Berlin Wall. A World Divided (all month)
- Brilli Brilli (from December 26 to January 5)
- Exhibition It from bit by Efrén Mur at Nave 0 (from December 5th)
- MUDA: the event that welcomes to the new Centro de Creación Contemporánea Quinta del Sordo (CCCQS)
- Madrid On Ice (from December 21 to January 5)
- El Belén del Príncipe at the Royal Palace (workshop on December 26, 27, 28, 29 and 30)
- Ochoymedio Club New Year's Eve Party in Teatro Eslava
- Crystal Christmas (from December 26 to 30)
- Beyond the Little Prince ( from December 12)
- Surrealist Christmas (from December 21 to 29)
- A visit to the Tomorrowland festival without moving from Madrid.
- Max Ernst: Surrealism, Art and Cinema (from December 5)
- Christmas movies at Cineteca (all month)
- Puerta Mágica, from the park Mágicas Navidades de Torrejón de Ardoz (until January 6)
- Concerts of the month
- Alice (from December 20 to 22)
- Naturaleza Encendida (all month)
- Alegría, by Cirque du Soleil (from December 4)
- Salta Conmigo': the Musical Show that goes through four decades of Spanish pop rock (until December 22).
- All Birds, by Wadi Mouawad (from December 5 to 19)
- XIII Santa Claus Race (December 24)
- Plaza Mayor Christmas Market (all month)
- Candlelight for Christmas
- Mercadillo del Gato (from December 14)
- Salesas Madrid (December 21)
- A getaway to hallucinate with Segovia
Marvel: Universe of Super Heroes (all month)
The official Marvel exhibition celebrates 85 years of the factory of heroes, heroines, villains and villainesses in Madrid! From historical comics to original movie costumes, the exhibition is a journey through more than 200 iconic objects, some of which are on display here for the first time.
Marvel. Universe of Super Heroes is an immersive experience whose soundtrack has been designed especially for this show; technology and large screens immerse the attendee in a superhero story without leaving Madrid.
📍 Location: Avenida del Partenón, 5 (Barajas)
💸 Tickets: From €16,90.
The Berlin Wall. A World Divided (all month)
On November 9, 1989, Berlin began a process of reunification. The wall that separated the German Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany was falling piece by piece, piece by piece during the whole month of December, uniting again families, friends and a city that had been split in two.
34 years later, more than 20 meters of the Berlin Wall as well as original testimonies from both sides of the wall and 300 original objects are exhibited in The Berlin Wall. A Divided World, an ambitious exhibition that reflects on the division, on borders, on the consequences of this historical moment from the personal to the collective; from the social to the political.
📍 Location: Canal Foundation (Canal)
💸 Tickets: Tickets: 15,80€.
Brilli Brilli (from December 26 to January 5)
La Casa Encendida’s winter festival is a celebration to say goodbye to 2024 and welcome 2025 with plans full of music, color and fantasy for the whole family. There will be family DJs with the Pizarro Brothers, a concert by Le Parody, artistic experimentation with Zapaburu, family workshops, an unforeseen exhibition of Hervé Tullet… you can consult the complete program here.
📍 Location: Ronda de Valencia, 2 (Embajadores)
💸 Tickets: 5€.
Exhibition It from bit by Efrén Mur at Nave 0 (from December 5th)

It from bit is the new show at the spectacular Nave 0 in Matadero. This space, which 100 years ago housed the cold room in which all the meat consumed in Madrid in a single day was stored, is today a container for contemporary art.
In December, digital artist Efrén Mur will install here a series of motion sensors that will collect data from attendees to make visible what happens in the space.
📍 Location: Paseo de la Chopera, 14 (Arganzuela)
💸 Admission: free
MUDA: the event that welcomes to the new Centro de Creación Contemporánea Quinta del Sordo (CCCQS)
To change is to change, to transcend, to evolve. It is “shedding the skin to continue creating”. This is the philosophy of the Quinta del Sordo that this December organizes the MUDA event to become the new Centro de Creación Contemporánea Quinta del Sordo. This MUDA will take place from December 14, the day on which this space (which has been in cultural activity in the city for eleven years) will officially become CCCQS and will open its doors to the public on a festive day full of culture and creation.
On that day, the exhibition Narratives of Collage will be inaugurated, with Jesús Tejero del Campo and Women who cut and paste. The Crispis installation will also be presented as part of the Escaparate Projects initiative (in the Mapeea store space, which will also host an exhibition of female designers). That day there will be live music by DJ Kaplan who will not only make his magic sound, but will also have a visual experience that will close the day.
But this party is just the beginning: inside CCCQS we find Elástica Librería, specialized in art and culture; the aforementioned Mapeea store, for lovers of design and beautiful things; Quinta Café Galería, where to have a drink and continue enjoying exhibitions and exhibitions; the Sala Principal, an exhibition hall with a curatorial line entitled Barrio(s); a coworking area with more than 80 booths… everything is about making community and doing it through culture, art and design.
Another thing that will happen in December at the CCCQS is the inauguration of the exhibition Casas Bajas, starting on the 18th with photographs by Santi Vaquero and texts by the cultural mediation collective La Liminal, which can be seen until May 18.
📍 Location: Calle del Rosario, 15 (La Latina)
Tickets: December 14, open day. Free and open access.
Madrid On Ice (from December 21 to January 5)
Did you know that Madrid holds one of the largest ice rinks in Europe? A total of 4,760 square meters of ice to slide on the experience. Madrid On Ice around the lawn of the Riyadh Air Metropolitano. The great extension of this “frozen Madrid” allows up to 1500 skaters simultaneously (and of all levels), a large circle of ice in which to practice or get started in the art of ice skating with friends, family or alone.
In addition, around the rink, there is a cultural space with gastronomic and leisure offerings, including churros, roasted chestnuts and cotton candy!
📍 Location: Av. de Luis Aragonés, 4 (San Blas-Canillejas)
💸 Tickets: from 18,50€.
El Belén del Príncipe at the Royal Palace (workshop on December 26, 27, 28, 29 and 30)

Every Christmas, the workers of Patrimonio Nacional whose “office” is the Royal Palace, have a mission. Or, rather, a tradition: to assemble the colossal Nativity Scene of the Prince whose origin dates back to the reign of Charles III (who brought the custom from Naples). And so, figure by figure, it came to have 5,900 pieces, some of them handcrafted by masters such as Roberto Michel or José Esteve, in the time of Charles IV.
Many of these figures have disappeared, they have spread to other places as well, but there are still 89 figures of that time that have been surrounded by new pieces. Today, the Belén del Príncipe occupies two rooms and, in its honor, a workshop is organized to learn both its history and the details of these crafts. Family workshops to create with recycled materials, develop imagination and raise awareness about recycling and reuse.
📍 Location:Calle de Bailén, s/n (Ópera)
💸 Tickets: from 6€.
Ochoymedio Club New Year’s Eve Party in Teatro Eslava
Oh, if Hilarión Eslava were to be resurrected, what would his eyes see in the theater that bears his name! The composer would witness endless nights of perreo, parties with lots of foam and glitter, laughter and dancing? And of the arrival of Ochoymedio Club to this centenary theater of the city.
Teatro Eslava has not stopped reinventing itself in recent decades, so much so that it has been sporting a Philippe Starck redesign for a couple of years now. So much so that its parties continue to be the most talked about in the city (even more so now that Ochoymedio Club has landed here ). And so it will be on New Year’s Eve, with a great plan that includes urban music, electronic, disco, dance, current hits, rescues of the 90s and 00s … all the best of the most beloved nightclub and the most danced theater of Madrid.
📍 Location:Calle del Arenal, 11 (Centro)
💸 Tickets: New Year’s Eve access with two drinks, 45€.
Crystal Christmas (from December 26 to 30)
This Christmas, the central patriotic Centro de Cultura Contemporánea Condeduque becomes a large installation of fantasy, light, art and winter. This is the work of Miguel Chevalier based on fractal structures found in nature.
📍 Location: Calle del Conde Duque, 11 (Conde Duque)
💸 Tickets:free access until full capacity.
Beyond the Little Prince ( from December 12)
The Jardiel Poncela hall of the Fernán Gómez Theater . Centro Cultural de la Villa, will host the play Beyond the Little Prince. Inspired by the work of Saint-Exupéry, but especially in the figure of the author himself, this theatrical proposal invites us to reflect on our existence, on the importance of not losing the inner child, what we abandon when we become adults…
📍 Location: Plaza de Colón, 4 (Salamanca)
💸 Tickets: from 18€.
Surrealist Christmas (from December 21 to 29)
The Círculo de Bellas Artes launches a very Christmas program to enjoy with the family and with a surrealist touch with activities full of games to enhance creativity. Just as this summer the CBA was filled with plants and spaces to share (the Climatic Refuge that made us feel so at home), this Christmas is once again open to the people of Madrid with games and lots of fantasy and with a critical look at the archetypal consumerism of these dates.
On the occasion of the exhibition of Max Ernst, which is in the same CBA, these activities collect the spirit of the surrealist genius (and others like Dali) as the common thread of a program full of dancing, costumes and games.
📍 Location: Calle de Alcalá, 42 (Centro)
💸 Tickets: free entrance to the space.
A visit to the Tomorrowland festival without moving from Madrid.
December is the month of endings, but also of promises and resolutions. During this month, the Tomorrowland Immersive Experience unfolds in the Crystal Room of the WiZink Center showing us new universes, those magical worlds created by each of the editions of the famous Belgian festival. Visitors will be able to immerse themselves in them through suggestive spaces and cutting-edge technology. The goal? To open the mind, embrace the imagination and let oneself be carried away. Perhaps also propose a visit to the festival next 2025?
🗓️ When:Monday to Friday from 5.30 pm. Saturdays and Sundays from 10am. Special opening hours on holidays and Christmas.
📍 Location: Sala de Cristal of WiZink Center: Calle Fuente del Berro 50, Puerta 50 Avenida de Felipe, II (Salamanca).
💸 Admission: from 18,50€. Special prices for children, families and groups.
Max Ernst: Surrealism, Art and Cinema (from December 5)
The Círculo de Bellas Artes hosts an ode to surrealism and cinema. How did the work of Max Ernst and his Dadaist, romantic, humanist imaginary … influence films? The result of a specific research that analyzes Ernst’s intimate relationship with the Seventh Art, this exhibition answers the question through paintings, sculptures, collages, frottages, illustrated books, photographs…
📍 Location: Calle Alcalá, 42 (Centro)
💸 Tickets: from 13,50 €.
Christmas movies at Cineteca (all month)
One more Christmas, the great movie classics of this season return to the big screen at the Cineteca de Matadero. A family film series in which we find titles such as Edward Scissorhands, Gremlins or Ghostbusters; but also a selection of 15 German films that, within the program of the City Council ‘Madrid, Christmas of Encounter’, serve to understand the guest country of this initiative, Germany.
📍 Location: Paseo de la Chopera, 14 (Arganzuela)
💸 Tickets: from 3,50 €.
Puerta Mágica, from the park Mágicas Navidades de Torrejón de Ardoz (until January 6)
The dazzling theme park, Mágicas Navidades de Torrejón de Ardoz, is already a must of the Christmas season, at the height of other of the many plans that the Community of Madrid has for these dates.
In this new edition, the Christmas Park in Spain has incorporated many new features that we already detailed in this article, but undoubtedly, Puerta Mágica is the most spectacular. Every hour this impressive stage hosts El Secreto de la Navidad, a great family show with live music and videomapping.
📍 Location: Plaza de España, Torrejón de Ardoz
💸 Tickets: starting at 3,50
Concerts of the month
We already know: Madrid is musical by definition. The halls of the city keep sessions with the best clubbing, unexpected recitals and important dates in the tours of the most important national and international artists of the moment. We highlight some concerts in Madrid:
- December 22, Ana mena (WiZink Center).
- December 23rd, Morad (WiZink Center)
- December 27, Ptazeta, at the Eslava Theater.
📍 Location: different venues and arenas in Madrid.
💸 Tickets: from 18 €.
Alice (from December 20 to 22)
The dance company MOMIX returns to Spain with a show full of magic, imagination, incredible beings… Alice is a beautiful and impressive show based on Alice in Wonderland. It is to enter the rabbit hole and access a world of illusion, fantasy and acrobatics. Directed by choreographer Moses Pendleton, the work is a body transformation, a game of body mirrors, images, music, artifact… and an incredible costume designed by Phoebe Katzin.
📍 Location:Felipe II Park (San Lorenzo de El Escorial)
💸 Tickets: from 38,50€.
Naturaleza Encendida (all month)

What would happen if the freest and most brutal nature invaded a space as iconic as the Tierno Galván Park¿ This is what will happen this December in the show Naturaleza Encendida . There, several artistic installations, with the presence of colored LED lights, make up a show that is already a Christmas classic. This edition, called LIFE, is a tribute to “the three great natural kingdoms: the aquatic, the terrestrial and the aerial, each one full of wonders that reveal nature in a surprising way”.
📍Calle Meneses, 4 (Legazpi)
💸 Tickets: from 10€.
Alegría, by Cirque du Soleil (from December 4)
The Cirque du Soleil classic returns to Madrid with a renewed show. A show for this Christmas with an exciting soundtrack, acrobatics, dizzying numbers … and feeling. In an unknown kingdom, the king disappears? Alegría lives immersed in the instability between the old and the new order. Between an iron past and a promising future.
📍 Location: under the Big Tent of the Puerta del Angel Stage (Casa de Campo Fairgrounds, Paseo del Embarcadero, Moncloa – Aravaca).
💸 Tickets: from 44 €.
Salta Conmigo’: the Musical Show that goes through four decades of Spanish pop rock (until December 22).
December comes alive with lights and musicals. The iconic SEAT Ibiza now has its own musical on Madrid’s Broadway, a journey through time through the best songs that marked several generations. A tribute to the most representative voices of the last four decades: Alaska, Tequila, Radio Futura, Los Ronaldos, Los Secretos or Nacha Pop, and many more! A great plan to live this Christmas with family, friends, even to encourage you to go out to karaoke. And if that’s not enough, you can enjoy a menu of unique tapas created by the catering of chef Ramón Freixa and an aftershow with DJ on weekends. See you at the Callao Cinemas! Get your tickets now at Fever before they sell out.
📍 Cines Callao, Plaza Callao 3
💸 Tickets at Fever
All Birds, by Wadi Mouawad (from December 5 to 19)
Vicky Peña leads this play set in Israel in a context, to say the least, peculiar and painful: in this country there is a wave of suicides among young people in love. Israeli-Palestinian couples are doomed to love failure so they see death itself as the only solution.
📍 Location:Calle de Cea Bermúdez, 1, (Chamberí)
💸 Tickets: from 9€.
XIII Santa Claus Race (December 24)

As iconic as it is epic: the thirteenth edition of the Santa Claus race will be held on December 24, as the climax before Santa Claus’ arrival at every house.
📍 Location: start and finish line at Paseo de Recoletos.
Plaza Mayor Christmas Market (all month)

One of the essential images of Christmas in Madrid. Perhaps even THE stamp. The Christmas Market in Plaza Mayor (to be installed at the end of November) returns this year with 104 booths where you can find Christmas decorations, objects for Nativity scenes and joke items.
📍 Location: Plaza Mayor (Center)
💸 Admission: free of charge
Candlelight for Christmas
The magic of candles, live music, the melodies of winter and Christmas… The Candlelight concert series prepares a totally dreamy Christmas dates with special shows.
🗓️ December 14 and 21, Christmas Carols
🗓️ December 15 and 29, Christmas Soundtracks
🗓️ December 22, Christmas Classics
🗓️ December 23, The Nutcracker Ballet
📍 Location: different locations
💸 Tickets : from 11 €
Mercadillo del Gato (from December 14)

The classic Mercadillo del Gato is back for Christmas (until December 14), an exclusive pop up market with more than fifty exhibitors. It is not an ordinary flea market, since among the pieces that will be on display, we will find from vintage haute couture dresses to luxury handbags or reproductions of works by the best painters of the nineteenth century. It will be located at the Centro Cultural de los Ejércitos, in the heart of Gran Vía.
📍 Location: Gran Vía, 13 (Gran Vía)
💸 Admission: free of charge
Salesas Madrid (December 21)

Salesas Salesas is already one of the areas of Madrid where things do not stop happening. For this reason, and with Christmas just around the corner, in the streets Campoamor and Santa Teresa will be organized on December 21 [The Festival] Xmas, a street market where there will be room for fashion, art, jewelry and, of course, gastronomy.
📍 Location: Calles Campoamor and Santa Teresa (Salesas)
💸 Admission: free
A getaway to hallucinate with Segovia
One of the jewels of our country, a city that breathes history on all four sides, from Roman times, with its famous aqueduct, to the Golden Age. Precisely from the 16th century are two of its most famous monuments and a must-see if you spend a day in the city: its Cathedral and the Episcopal Palace. Both offer guided tours, including a night tour to enjoy the views of the city… and even has its own escape room! And it even has its own escape room!
📍 Location: Cathedral, at Calle Marqués del Arco, 1; Palacio Episcopal, at Plaza de San Esteban, 13.
💸 Admission: all types of tickets for the Cathedral and the Palacio Episcopal.