AD: El Gouna Lights Up the Red Sea With Its Christmas Tree Ceremony

On a crisp December evening, El Gouna’s central square glimmered with a spectacle that has quietly become part of the Red Sea town’s history: the annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony. For 35 years, this moment has been a beacon of the community itself—a place where residents, visitors, and friends of the town gather to celebrate the season while quietly honouring what makes El Gouna special: its people.

Under the twinkle of the towering tree, laughter echoed across the canals. Children ran between market stalls. Families toasted hot cocoa in the cool evening air. Friends paused mid-stroll to snap pictures of the lights reflecting off the water. It was festive, yes, but also unmistakably El Gouna: warm, personal, and effortlessly inviting.

This year, the ceremony doubled as a subtle showcase of El Gouna’s features, experiences, and everyday moments that make life here feel personal and alive—from canal-side chats to sunlit terraces, from local events to everyday routines. This is a town of 25,000 residents from more than 50 nationalities, yet it feels intimate, familiar, and entirely its own. Nearly a million visitors pass through each year, but it’s the people—the neighbors, the shop owners, the artists, the families—that shape its character. And during this ceremony, their presence was at the heart of every sparkle, every note of music, every cheer.But beyond providing children with a sense of wonder and adults with a chance to relive their childhoods, the tree lighting ceremony served to set the tone for a new year full of experiences, gatherings, and simple pleasures that make every single Goonie feel seen. And, for those visiting or observing from afar, it might help you understand why the town’s iconic tagline feels so natural: “El Gouna: Life as It Should Be.”