It's still only July, but one of Austin's favorite Christmas traditions is peeking around the corner with official dates for 2025. We'll give them an excuse for being so excited, since this is a big occasion: the 50th season of the Armadillo Christmas Bazaar. It'll take place December 13-21 — across two weekends — at the Palmer Events Center.

The event promises 200 artists, daily live music, and new merch for Armadillo-lovers.

“Our 50th season is more than a milestone. It’s a mirror to Austin’s evolution — artistically, musically, and economically,” said executive producer Bruce Willenzik in a press release. “During our five-decade journey, we have adapted to Austin’s changing landscape, gentrification, shifting holiday trends, and even a pandemic.”

The Bazaar was first held at the famous Armadillo World Headquarters (AWHQ), seen as a cultural equalizer where people of all kinds could come and see music they connected with. As a hub for artists — some very famous, some struggling, and some in between — AWHQ was in a unique position to put cool art in front of buyers during the holidays. Supposedly it was Lucinda Williams who said her "artist friends didn’t have a warm, dry place to sell their art during the holidays."

New in 2025 are:

• A new logo featuring "Dottie" a minimalist pink, aqua, and dark blue armadillo who replaces the stack of three that used to represent the Bazaar. The release says the logo reflects "Bazaar’s bold, creative, and inclusive spirit while still honoring its deep Texas roots." The logo was designed by Austin's Blase Design.
• The “I Armadillo Austin” collection, available now, featuring Dottie in a design like the famous "I Heart NY" logo. Organizers see it as a way to commit to the Armadillo countercultural movement — part of which is about supporting makers, who keep 100 percent of their sales at the market.
• An invitation to each participating artist to create an armadillo in their own medium and style, resulting in hundreds of unique armadillos at the event. Shoppers will be able to see behind-the-scenes footage of how they were made and vote for their favorite.

  An example of the new “I Armadillo Austin” collection.Image courtesy of the Armadillo Christmas Bazaar

A list of vendors for 2025 will be announced in August. Plus, attendees are told to expect returning musical favorites including Shinyribs, Ruthie Foster, and Marcia Ball, and of course the festive cocktail bar will be returning as well.

Although the Bazaar outlived AWHQ, which closed after just 10 years in 1980, it retained its interest in selling art first and foremost, with some other broadly appealing gifts like soaps, house plants, toys, and more making the market more universal in recent years.

Plus, as of 2024, the original AWHQ isn't fully back, but its spirit and name live on in the form of an artist-benefiting merch store (once a brick-and-mortar pop-up, now online) and an ongoing lifestyle brand that holds events, highlights music history, and plots other ways to make sure Austinites remember (or learn) how it used to feel to live here.

“The Armadillo Christmas Bazaar carries on the Armadillo World Headquarters’ role as a social experiment to model a more human form of sustainable capitalism aligned with the old hippie community spirit,” said Willenzik.

Tickets for the Armadillo Christmas Bazaar will go on sale in late October at ArmadilloBazaar.com. In the meantime, fans can stay up-to-date by signing up for the Bazaar newsletter, which contains early-bird alerts, artist reveals, and some peeks behind the curtain.