Short answer: December is the full month. <strong>Cinderella</strong> opens at Theatre Royal Plymouth on Friday the 4th and <strong>Snow White</strong> at Barnstaple and <strong>Pinocchio</strong> at the Corn Exchange on Saturday the 12th. The <strong>Tavistock Christmas Festival</strong> is Sunday the 6th. Powderham and Rosemoor both finish on the 30th, and the Bay of Lights runs every night right through to 3 January.
Tuesday 1 to Saturday 5 December: Beauty and the Beast at Devonport Playhouse, Plymouth.
Wednesday 2 December: The Loneliest Snowball opens at The Lab, Theatre Royal Plymouth, to 2 January.
Friday 4 December: Cinderella opens at Theatre Royal Plymouth, to 3 January. £18 to £49.50, and the price swings hard by date — £18 midweek in early December against £49.50 for the Saturday matinee on the 19th.
Saturday 5 December: the Woodlands Christmas Grotto opens near Dartmouth. No pushchairs through the grotto, which is the thing people find out too late.
Saturday 5 December: Christmas at Crealy, Clyst St Mary. Day ticket from £18, Santa upgrade from £14.
Saturday 5 December: Santa’s Best Ever Christmas at Pavilions Teignmouth. One day only.
Sunday 6 December: the Tavistock Christmas Festival in the pannier market hall. Free entry, and the biggest one-day Christmas event in west Devon.
Tuesday 8 December: Totnes Christmas Market in the town centre. Free entry.
Friday 11 December: Snow White opens at the Princess Theatre, Torquay, to 2 January, with a relaxed performance on the 27th.
Friday 11 December: the Butchers Hall Christmas Markets begin in Tavistock and run to the 23rd. Free entry.
Friday 11 December: the RHS Glow silent disco at Rosemoor, included with a Glow ticket.
Saturday 12 December: Pinocchio opens at Exeter Corn Exchange, to 2 January. £17.50 to £21.50.
Saturday 12 December: Snow White opens at the Queen’s Theatre, Barnstaple, to 3 January. From £13.50 — the cheapest full panto in Devon and the only one in the far north.
Sunday 13 December: the Exeter Cathedral Christmas Market closes. Last chance.
Sunday 13 December: Yeti opens at Exeter Phoenix, listed to the 27th.
Tuesday 15 December: A Christmas Carol at Exmouth Pavilion. One night.
Thursday 17 December: A (little) Christmas Carol opens at the Barnfield Theatre, Exeter.
Saturday 19 December: Mother Goose opens at the Palace Theatre, Paignton, to 2 January.
Saturday 19 December: Dick Whittington opens at Pavilions Teignmouth, listed to the 29th.
Saturday 19 December: Babbacombe Model Village goes to daily opening. Adult £22.95.
Sunday 20 December: the relaxed performance of Snow White at Barnstaple. Every relaxed, signed and captioned performance in Devon is listed here.
Monday 21 to Thursday 24 December: Snuffle the Snow Dragon at the Soapbox Theatre, Plymouth. Scrooge runs there from the 22nd.
Wednesday 23 December: The Pantomime Adventures of Robin Hood opens at Exmouth Pavilion, to 2 January. The last panto to open.
Wednesday 23 December: the last Santa trains of the year run at both the Dartmouth Steam Railway and the South Devon Railway. After this there is no Santa anywhere in Devon.
Thursday 24 December: Plymouth Winter Wonderland closes at 7pm. Most town centres wind down by mid-afternoon.
Friday 25 December: Christmas Day. Almost everything is shut, including Powderham, Babbacombe and the Winter Wonderland. The Bay of Lights still runs, because it is a public seafront and nobody has to open it.
Saturday 26 December: Boxing Day. What is open in Devon on Boxing Day has it attraction by attraction, and the Boxing Day walks with a pub at the end is the one most people actually want.
Sunday 27 December: the relaxed performance of Snow White at Torquay.
Sunday 27 to Wednesday 30 December: the Winter Wonderland is back to 11am to 9pm, and this is the quiet stretch at the light trails too.
Wednesday 30 December: Powderham and Rosemoor both have their last night. If you have been meaning to go, this is the deadline.
Thursday 31 December: New Year’s Eve. Devon does not do a big municipal fireworks night the way Cornwall does — what actually happens, town by town is worth reading before you plan around one that is not there.
The five light trails are all running by 1 December. The Bay of Lights is free, runs every single night and is the only one you can do on a whim.
Devon’s Christmas markets are concentrated in Exeter, Tavistock and Totnes, and the pannier markets run their normal days on top.
Plymouth Winter Wonderland runs all month at Central Park, but the weekday hours change on the 18th — before that it does not open until 3.30pm Monday to Thursday.
Every Father Christmas in Devon is here with the small print, and New Year's Eve explains what actually happens on the 31st.
Three more December guides: National Trust Christmas at eight Devon properties, the carol services and cathedral concerts (most of them free), and what Christmas Day lunch costs and when to book it.
What is open on Christmas Day itself.
The New Year’s Day swims are the first thing in the diary for January, and January itself is quieter than you would think — which is rather the point of it.
Pick a town and plan the day around who's with you.
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