The Western NY<\/a> metro earned the top spot thanks to its abundance of holiday cheer including as many as 800 seasonal events and its reliably snowy Decembers. Buffalo averages more than 25 inches of snow in December alone, with better than a 50% chance of a white Christmas.<\/p>\n Buffalo also ranks third in this year\u2019s Upstate New York Golden Snowball contest<\/a>, which tracks snowfall totals across the region. Syracuse, often dubbed America\u2019s snowiest large city, currently sits in the top spot.<\/p>\n Known as the City of Good Neighbors, Buffalo leans fully into the holidays with a Christmas bar<\/a> crawl with fully decked halls, a Tom and Jerry cocktail<\/a> trail featuring the eggnog-like drink spiked with rum and brandy, and a European-style Christmas market at the Richardson Olmstead Campus<\/a>.<\/p>\n Other can\u2019t-miss seasonal highlights include ice skating at the 33,000-square-foot rink along Buffalo\u2019s waterfront, the Festival of Lights<\/a> in nearby Hamburg, and the annual poinsettia exhibit at the Buffalo & Erie County Botanical Gardens<\/a>.<\/p>\n Snowy ski towns Aspen, Colorado, and Park City, Utah, ranked second and third on the list, respectively, while New York City with its iconic Rockefeller Center Christmas tree trucked in from the Capital Region this year came in at No. 4.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While there may be no place like home for the holidays, the season may feel extra magical if…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71675,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[36563,9,24,55,54,56],"class_list":["post-71674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-highmark-stadium","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71674\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Snow](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/EMG3VRQOW5DXXLXFIUD2DFUXII.jpg\")
Julia Witt marches in the annual Hamburg Holiday Parade on November 30, 2024 in Hamburg, New York, just south of Buffalo. (Photo by John Normile\/Getty Images)Getty Images<\/p>\n![\"Nowhere](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/5T3XUWZ2CJDURGQ2VFJARCLE6U.jpg\")
Nowhere Lounge is a tiny cocktail bar that gets maxed out for the holidays in Buffalo. Provided photo | @queen_city_vintage_716 on InstagramProvided photo | @queen_city_vintage_716 on Instagram<\/p>\n![\"Buffalo](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/6TP7VMA5AJC7JAF5FWMTNV6FFQ.jpg\")
The European-style holiday market at Buffalo’s Richardson Olmstead Campus. Alicia Kwietniewski | @aliciakwietniewskiphoto on InstagramAlicia Kwietniewski | @aliciakwietniewskiphoto on Instagram<\/p>\n