New Year and Orthodox Christmas in Georgia

Two holidays, one long festive season

Georgia’s winter holiday season runs considerably longer than a single date, stretching from New Year’s Eve on 31 December through Orthodox Christmas on 7 January and, for some, a further Orthodox New Year celebration on 14 January that a smaller number of Georgians still observe today. For a visitor, this means roughly two weeks in which the capital in particular carries a distinct festive atmosphere — markets, lights, a livelier evening scene — layered on top of the mild, grey winter described in Georgia in winter. This guide sets out what actually happens across this period and what it means for planning a trip around it.

Why the date is different: the Julian calendar

The core fact to understand is that the Georgian Orthodox Church follows the Julian calendar for religious dates, which currently runs 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar used civilly across most of the world. This is why Orthodox Christmas falls on 7 January rather than 25 December, a pattern shared with Russia, Serbia and several other Orthodox churches, though not all — the Greek Orthodox Church, for instance, uses the Gregorian calendar for its main feasts. Georgia’s civil New Year, 31 December to 1 January, follows the standard Gregorian date that the rest of the world uses, which is part of why New Year’s Eve, not Christmas, ends up as the bigger, more universally celebrated event for most Georgians.

New Year’s Eve: the bigger celebration

For most Georgian families, New Year’s Eve is the season’s main event, closer in scale and secular character to how many Western countries treat Christmas Day itself. It centres on a long supra — the traditional Georgian feast, with the tamada leading toasts through the evening — followed by fireworks at midnight, particularly visible from Tbilisi’s hills and viewpoints. Public spaces across the city are decorated, and a New Year’s market atmosphere builds in the days beforehand.

Tbilisi: New Year's Village Christmas Market Guided Tour covers this festive market scene directly, and Tbilisi: Night Tour by Retro Electric Car New Year Views offers a different, lower-key way to see the city’s lights and decorations after dark during this period.

Mekvle: the first-footer tradition

One of the more distinctive Georgian New Year customs is mekvle, the “first-footer” — the first person to enter a household after midnight on New Year’s Eve, believed to set the tone for the household’s fortune in the year ahead. Families often arrange for a particular relative or friend considered to bring good luck to take on this role deliberately, arriving with small symbolic gifts of sweets, bread or coins. It’s a custom rooted in older Georgian folk tradition that predates the more recently adopted Western New Year customs now also present in Georgian celebrations, and it sits alongside the supra and fireworks as one of the specifically Georgian elements of the evening rather than a generic New Year celebration.

Food and drink through the season

The winter holiday table in Georgia leans into the season’s heartiest dishes: khinkali, rich khachapuri, roast meats and a table laden with the kind of variety a proper supra demands, alongside churchkhela and gozinaki — a walnut-and-honey brittle specifically associated with the New Year period — as the season’s characteristic sweets. Wine and chacha both feature heavily, with the tamada’s toasts at a New Year supra often running longer and covering more ground than at an ordinary family meal, reflecting the occasion’s significance. Restaurants across Tbilisi build specific New Year’s Eve menus and events around this, and booking ahead is worth doing if a restaurant-based celebration rather than a private supra is the plan.

Orthodox Christmas: church, carols and Alilo

Orthodox Christmas on 7 January carries a more specifically religious character than New Year’s Eve, centred on church attendance — Svetitskhoveli Cathedral in Mtskheta and Tbilisi’s Sameba Cathedral both see significant crowds around this date — and the Alilo procession, in which people, often dressed in white or traditional clothing, walk through the streets singing carols and carrying icons and crosses. Alilo is most visibly celebrated in Tbilisi, where the procession moves through the old town toward Freedom Square, and it’s one of the more striking public events on the Georgian calendar for a visitor who happens to be in the city for it.

Gift-giving in Georgia is traditionally more associated with New Year than with Christmas itself, a contrast with Western traditions that visitors sometimes find unexpected, though this has blended somewhat with broader international customs in recent years, particularly among younger, urban Georgians.

Chichilaki: Georgia’s own Christmas tree

Alongside, or in some households instead of, a conventional Christmas tree, many Georgians decorate with a chichilaki — a small, cone-shaped ornament made from dried and curled hazelnut or walnut branch shavings, traditionally white or pale, that predates the more recently adopted Christmas tree custom in several regions of the country. It’s a distinctive, specifically Georgian craft object worth looking out for in markets during this season, and one of the more easily portable, authentic souvenirs a visitor might bring home from a winter trip — see Souvenirs worth carrying home for where to find one alongside other Georgian crafts.

Tbilisi’s lights and public decorations

The capital invests visibly in its holiday decorations through this period, with lights strung across Rustaveli Avenue and the main squares, a decorated tree typically at the centre of one of the city’s key public spaces, and market stalls selling crafts, chichilaki, food and mulled wine through the weeks either side of New Year.

Best viewpoints in Tbilisi takes on a different character during this season, since the city’s lights add another layer to the usual daytime views from Narikala or Mtatsminda, and an evening visit to one of these points during the holiday season shows the decorations at their best. The overall effect is considerably more festive than Tbilisi’s more understated look the rest of the year, and it’s one of the more underrated reasons to consider a winter visit specifically timed around this window despite the season’s otherwise mild appeal compared with autumn or spring.

How the rest of the country marks the season

Outside Tbilisi, the character of the season shifts. Batumi puts on its own New Year decorations and events along the boulevard, drawing domestic visitors escaping the capital’s colder, greyer weather for a coastal holiday break, even though swimming itself is entirely off the table this time of year.

Kakheti’s wineries generally quiet down for the season, having wound up the last of the wine-related tourism after the autumn harvest covered in Georgia in autumn, though family celebrations there follow the same broad pattern as Tbilisi’s. Smaller towns and villages tend to centre the season more around church attendance and family gatherings than public spectacle, a quieter, more intimate version of the capital’s more visible celebrations.

Practical crowd and booking advice

Given how concentrated demand becomes across this roughly two-week window, a few practical points are worth flagging directly. Flights into Tbilisi around both 31 December and 6–7 January can carry a premium and sell out further ahead than at other times of year, particularly for domestic and regional routes bringing Georgians and neighbouring nationals home or on holiday for the season.

Restaurants offering a set New Year’s Eve menu, particularly well-regarded ones in the old town, often require advance booking or a deposit given how firmly this evening is treated as a major occasion. Taxi and rideshare demand spikes sharply around midnight on New Year’s Eve specifically, and walking or pre-arranging transport is generally more reliable than expecting to hail a car in the immediate aftermath of the fireworks.

What actually changes for a visitor

Practically, a few things shift for travellers during this window. Accommodation in Tbilisi and particularly at Gudauri, covered in The Georgian ski season, becomes noticeably pricier and harder to book, since the season overlaps directly with the ski resort’s own peak demand.

Some museums, government offices and smaller businesses close or run reduced hours around 1–2 January and again around 7 January, similar to how many countries treat their main winter holidays, so it’s worth checking specific opening hours if a trip falls within this window. Restaurants and the city’s core tourist infrastructure generally remain open and, if anything, busier than usual, since dining out is very much part of how the season is celebrated.

Tbilisi: Bakuriani New Year's Eve Overnight Tour is a reasonable way to spend the New Year’s Eve period specifically outside the capital, combining the holiday with a start to the ski season at Bakuriani.

Orthodox New Year: a smaller, older tradition

A further celebration, Orthodox New Year on 14 January, is observed by a smaller number of Georgians, generally more quietly and often within the family rather than in public celebrations. It’s the final marker of the season’s Julian-calendar echo of the Gregorian New Year already celebrated two weeks earlier, and visitors are unlikely to notice much public change around this date compared with the two bigger events already covered.

Fireworks, noise and what midnight actually looks like

Tbilisi’s New Year midnight is genuinely loud: organised municipal fireworks are typically joined by extensive private fireworks set off across the city by residents themselves, a tradition that gives the night a more improvised, citywide character than a single centralised display would.

Visitors sensitive to prolonged, unpredictable noise, or travelling with very young children who might be distressed by it, should factor this into where they choose to be at midnight — a hotel room with a view rather than a crowded public square is a reasonable way to see the display without being in the thick of the loudest and busiest part of the celebration. The display generally continues in bursts for a while after midnight itself rather than being a single brief moment.

Public holiday dates worth noting directly

The core dates to hold in mind for this season are 1 and 2 January, both public holidays marking the New Year itself, and 7 January for Orthodox Christmas, itself a public holiday. Public holidays and what closes sets these dates alongside the rest of Georgia’s calendar, including the smaller Orthodox New Year on 14 January that a minority still observes and that carries no public holiday status. Anyone whose trip touches any of these specific dates should expect the closures and reduced hours discussed elsewhere on this page rather than assuming normal service throughout.

Comparing this season to Easter

Georgia’s other major Orthodox observance, Orthodox Easter in Georgia, shares the same Julian-calendar logic but falls in spring rather than winter and carries a different character — more centred on church vigils and family reunions than on public festivity and fireworks. Together, the two seasons are the clearest windows in the Georgian calendar where religious and public life visibly intertwine, and either is worth understanding before a trip lands across one of them, even for visitors with no religious interest of their own in the events.

Building a trip around this season

For a trip specifically timed around New Year and Orthodox Christmas, Tbilisi is the obvious base — its markets, decorations, Alilo procession and overall festive atmosphere are the strongest version of this season anywhere in the country. Combining a few days in the capital with a short stay at Gudauri or Bakuriani, covered in The Georgian ski season, rounds out a winter-holiday trip well, provided accommodation is booked well ahead given how much demand concentrates into this specific fortnight. A winter week: Gudauri, Tbilisi and the baths is built along broadly these lines.

Tbilisi: Christmas Magic of Tbilisi All Included Tour covers the capital’s festive side comprehensively, a reasonable single-day anchor for a trip built around this specific season.

Packing and practicalities for this specific window

Beyond the general winter packing advice covered in Georgia in winter, a couple of season-specific points are worth adding. Smart-casual clothing is worth including if a restaurant-based New Year’s Eve celebration or a formal church visit for Orthodox Christmas is part of the plan, since both occasions carry more dress expectation than an ordinary winter sightseeing day. Cash in Georgian lari is worth carrying in slightly larger amounts than usual during this period, since some smaller market stalls and informal New Year events may not process cards as smoothly as they would the rest of the year, particularly given the volume of transactions on the busiest nights.

Frequently asked questions about New Year and Orthodox Christmas in Georgia

Does the whole country celebrate the same way, or does it vary by region?

The broad pattern — New Year as the bigger event, Orthodox Christmas centred on church and Alilo — holds nationally, though Tbilisi’s public celebrations are the most visible, and smaller towns tend toward quieter, more family-centred versions of the same traditions rather than large public events.

Why does Georgia celebrate Christmas on 7 January?

The Georgian Orthodox Church follows the Julian calendar for religious dates, which currently runs 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar most of the world uses. This puts Orthodox Christmas on 7 January rather than 25 December.

Is New Year’s Eve or Christmas the bigger celebration in Georgia?

New Year’s Eve is generally the bigger, more widely celebrated event, closer in scale and secular character to how many Western countries treat Christmas itself, with fireworks, family gatherings and a large supra. Orthodox Christmas is more specifically religious, centred on church attendance.

What is Alilo?

Alilo is a Christmas procession, most visibly held in Tbilisi, in which people, often in traditional or white clothing, walk through the streets singing carols and carrying icons and crosses, typically on the morning of 7 January.

Do Georgians decorate a Christmas tree?

Many households do, alongside or instead of a chichilaki, a traditional Georgian decoration made from dried, curled hazelnut or walnut branches, which in some regions predates the more recently adopted Christmas tree tradition.

Is Georgia busy with tourists around New Year?

It sees a rise in domestic and regional travel specifically, particularly to the ski resorts, more than a spike in international tourism generally. Gudauri specifically becomes noticeably busier and pricier through this period, and flights and well-regarded restaurants can book out well ahead of the dates themselves for exactly this reason.

What should I wear to a New Year’s Eve supra or a Christmas church service in Georgia?

Smart-casual is generally appropriate for a hosted supra, while a church visit calls for modest, covered clothing regardless of the season — see Visiting a Georgian Orthodox church: dress and etiquette for the specifics that apply year-round, not just at Christmas.

Do museums and attractions close over the holidays?

Many do close or run reduced hours around 1–2 January and again around 7 January, similar to how many countries treat their main winter holidays. Check specific opening hours in advance if a trip falls within this window.