What the weather actually does
December is the month that surprises the people who think Scottsdale is warm year-round. Afternoons are lovely — typically mid 60s, sunny, dry enough to sit outside at lunch in a t-shirt. Mornings are another thing. Typical lows sit around 44°F, clear nights push into the 30s, and the north side wakes up to frost on the windshields and frost cloth over the bougainvillea. The sun’s down around 5:20, and the temperature drops ten degrees in the hour after.
A couple of rainy days are normal most years, usually one Pacific storm that parks over the Valley for a day and greens the desert for a month. In a good year the McDowells and Four Peaks get a dusting of snow you can see from the 101, and the whole town drives to look at it. Daylight is the shortest of the year — ten hours, roughly — which makes the morning cold feel longer and the evening lights feel earlier.
What’s on
The holidays, at scale. Christmas at the Princess runs the whole month: millions of lights, an ice rink in the desert, light shows over the lagoon, trains and Santa — the biggest holiday production in Arizona, at a resort that already knew how to handle a crowd. Downtown, Scottsdazzle strings lights along the Waterfront and through Old Town with tree lightings, carriage rides and sing-alongs, most of it free.
The weekly rituals hold: Scottsdale ArtWalk every Thursday (the holiday editions are the year’s busiest), the Old Town Farmers Market every Saturday morning with citrus finally in season. McCormick-Stillman Railroad Park does its own holiday lights and train rides most years, which is the move for small kids. New Year’s Eve fills the Old Town bar district, and the bowl-game crowds arrive for the last week.
What to do
Do the lights properly. Princess on a weeknight early in the month, Scottsdazzle on foot any night — the Old Town on foot loop through the Waterfront is at its best under the string lights. If you have kids under eight, the Railroad Park beats both.
Hike everything. This is the month the McDowell Sonoran Preserve rewards a 9 a.m. start — cold at the trailhead, perfect by the first climb. Tom’s Thumb, the Gateway Loop, Pinnacle Peak at sunset with the whole valley glowing. Camelback is finally reasonable on a weekday.
Golf in the good light. Winter rye, low sun, no sweat. The frost delays in the morning are real; book after 9 and read golf without a membership first.
Eat the holiday meals. The Phoenician, the Camelback Inn and the Hermosa Inn all do the big-table version; Hotel Valley Ho does it with midcentury glamour and a walk to Old Town after. Reserve in November.
Ride at noon. The Greenbelt is a perfect midday ride; Chaparral Park lake is stocked with trout for the winter, if that’s your thing.
Run the 48 hours. The 48-hour itinerary works in December with one edit: swap the morning swim for a morning hike and eat the big dinner indoors.
What to skip
- Expecting to swim. Resort pools are heated; the air at 7 a.m. is 44°. It’s a hot-tub month.
- Holiday-week drop-ins. Between Christmas and New Year’s, every good room and table was booked weeks ago.
- The Princess on a weekend night in late December without tickets in hand. The line is the whole evening.
- Camelback on a holiday-week morning. Use the Preserve — same view, a tenth of the parade.
- Packing for the afternoon only. The evening is the whole holiday; the evening is cold.
The local’s calendar
December has two halves for residents. The first two weeks are the calm: school’s still in, the snowbirds have settled into their routines, and the town runs at a pleasant, full-but-manageable hum. Then winter break hits around the third week, the out-of-town family lands, and Scottsdale runs at full occupancy through New Year’s Day. The 101 and Scottsdale Road are at their winter worst; getting around Scottsdale matters more this month than any other.
The frost cloth comes out. Every yard with a citrus tree or a lantana has a bedsheet over it on the cold nights, and the grapefruit and oranges are just starting to come in — locals give bags of them away by January. The overseeded lawns get their winter cut, the fireplaces run nightly, and the smell of mesquite smoke on a cold evening is December’s version of July’s creosote.
Resorts price the holiday week as a peak. Christmas Eve through New Year’s rivals February, with the bowl-game visitors layered on top of the holiday families; early December, by contrast, is one of the better values of the high season. The Princess is a holiday theme park for the whole month and runs like one — ticketed nights, dynamic pricing, and a completely different property from the July version that costs a third as much.
November is warmer, with more events and a slightly easier calendar; January is this month without the lights, with the auction crowds and the coldest nights of the year rolling in. If you want Scottsdale at Christmas, this is the only December there is — book it the way you’d book a beach town in July.