Results matching “Christmas”

Over the past few years, The Connaught hotel has used an artist to design their Christmas tree, which illuminates Mount Street. The Connaught hotel's Christmas tree this year is designed by Irish abstract painter Sean Scully. It is a Christmas tree designed with four bold block colours in an abstract manner. It takes over 25,000 light bulbs to bring this Christmas tree artwork to life. Scully said of the tree: "It's a Suprematist Christmas tree wearing a starry magician's hat" (1).

Previous Connaught Christmas trees that I covered on my blog are below:

• 2018 Michael Craig-Martin
• 2017 Tracey Emin
• 2016 Damien Hirst
• 2015 Antony Gormley

The Christmas tree will be on display until early January. 

1) Sean Scully's Artful Christmas Tree Lights Up the Connaught in London. https://www.galeriemagazine.com/sean-scully-christmas-tree-connaught/ [Galerie Magazine]. 5 December, 2019.

I visited Kingston Lacy, a National Trust property located in Dorset, with a group of friends this past weekend. Kingston Lacy is one of the National Trust properties in the southwest that are decorated for Christmas and have a winter light trail. If you are a regular reader of this blog, you may remember my first visit to Kingston Lacy in early June (An Afternoon at Kingston Lacy (Dorset, England)) or my last post about the Christmas decorations at the house Christmas at Kingston Lacy). The property have been including a winter light trail for the past few years now, and some of my friends have been a couple of times. They said that it was even bigger and better this year.

The light installations this year were inspired by members of the Bankes family who lived at Kingston Lacy house. The lights include an interactive experience where visitors can push a button to light up trees/bushes, and one part of the trail features changing colours of trees set to a soundscape. Japanese lanterns are located in the Acer Glade, and the reds, oranges, and yellows lit up to the obelisk are inspired from desert sun in Egypt.

The colours were fascinating with the above tree-lined walkway set to a soundscape and changing colours.

A bridge was lit up, and along the trees and dotted around this part of the trail were miniature doors.

The colours were very pretty, as you can see in the above photograph.

The winter illuminations take approximately half an hour to walk around, and they are in place until 5th January (excluding Christmas Day and Christmas Eve). 

Last weekend, I visited Kingston Lacy with a group of friends in order to see the house decorated for the holidays and to walk the winter lights trail at the property. If you are a regular reader of this blog, you may remember my first visit to Kingston Lacy in early June: An Afternoon at Kingston Lacy (Dorset, England). The house was decorated for an Edwardian Christmas that former owner Henrietta Bankes and her children would have known, and it includes inspirations from their lists, letters, and cards.

Each of the rooms had a tree, and only the first floor was open with the level above closed off. One of the rooms contained games and toys that would have been popular for Christmas in the Edwardian period, and this was busy with families participating in the games and toys in front of a large Christmas tree.

However, before we went into the house, we checked out the shop and had a hot chocolate. I loved the decorations around the shop.

When inside the house, we were greeted with a red and gold tree inside the main entrance hall and the fireplace a few steps up decorated in the same colour scheme.

Up the stairs were two more trees, this time decorated in silver. And at the top of the stairs, the stairwell to the top floor was closed off with wrapped gifts and more red and gold decorations.

The main room contained a large Christmas tree and the games.

This led into another room with its own Christmas tree.

The dining room had a pile of boxes on the table and a blue and gold tree. The table contained a couple of gifts from the family along with letters that they wrote about the gifts for Christmas.

The small room had a smaller tree made with sliced oranges.

Seeing Kingston Lacy at Christmas was a unique experience and very different from the first visit in June.

Unfortunately, all of the house tours have been booked, but you can chance turning up on the day. The house and winter lights trail is free to visit for National Trust members.

I recently spent a day at Longeat, and this is a place that is easy to spend a day visiting over the holiday season. I purchased a day ticket, and this included a drive on the Winter Safari, visits to see the other animas, a boat ride, a visit to the Longleat House (Christmas at Longleat House) and the Festival of Lights (Longleat Festival of Lights: "Myths and Legends"). The first stop for the day was to drive the Winter Safari, which was recommended to complete first because it gets busy. Overall, I was one of the first in the queue, and it took a little over two hours to complete the drive, but this would take longer if it's particularly busy.

There was one part to stop off to see some other animals, and I saw all of them except for the lemurs, which were apparently still sleeping.

I actually got a great view of the lions and cheetah. I did also see the tigers, but the traffic in this area was particularly bad, and the tigers had run to the other side of the enclosure (where I'd just driven from), so I did not get to see them well, but they looked cute as they had a couple of playful cubs.

There was also a pretty large pack of wolves, but I never got them to look at me in the car as they were always looking at something else.

The only animals that I did not see on the safari were the giraffes and the elephant. However, the sunny weather (this was the first sunny day in at least a week) brought out the animals, and I was lucky to see most of them.

I loved the beautiful birds, but they would fly really close to visitors waiting for hand-outs. People could purchase food for them.

They even have koala bears! 

Another favourite of mine is the red panda.

On the boat ride, we saw sea lions, gorillas, and hippo. Apparently, the gorillas never go that near to the water, so we got a good view. The gorilla below is the alpha male gorilla; apparently their heads are shaped differently when they are the alpha. The hippos also woke up and were standing by the side of the lake when passing back through.

Oh, and this island in the middle of the lake was home to some black and white monkey creatures.

Overall, it was a fun day! 

I also had a look around Longleat House, which was decorated for Christmas. I visited the bakery inside the house and also to a sweet shop and a couple of other shops on the grounds. There was also plenty of places to eat a meal.

For more information and to see more about Longleat, visit my Christmas at Longleat post and my Longleat Festival of Lights post:

• Longleat Festival of Lights: "Myths and Legends"
• Christmas at Longleat House

To ease into the holidays, I recommend a visit to see the play "White Christmas" at the Dominion Theatre. Last week, I made a trip to watch the musical as it is now in the West End after having been successful in Leicester last year. The musical has been touring for many years now, and is now in Londonuntil 4th January. Of course, the story and music comes from the 1954 film by the same name, popular for the Irving Berlin music and song "White Christmas" and numerous other songs and actors Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney (amongst others).

I saw the film "White Christmas" a few years ago but could not remember the story. However, it's the music we are interested in with favourite songs such as "White Christmas" and "Snow". If you have not seen it yet, you have until 4th January, and it is a feel-good and very Christmassy story. I have no doubt you will leave smiling.

Over the holiday season, Longleat House puts on its annual and popular Longleat Festival of Lights event and decorates for Christmas. Longleat House itself has been decorated for Christmas with seven Christmas trees in various rooms, including a massive 20-foot tree in the Great Hall. The Christmas decoration theme is the "Roaring 1920s". Only the ground floor of Longleat House is opened to visitors during Christmas. Unfortunately, photographs were not allowed inside the house.

In addition to Longleat House's rooms being decorated for Christmas, the outside courtyard has also been decorated with a large tree. The Christmas tree here has a sound and light show projected onto it, synchronised with music and different patterns to favourite Christmas songs.

In addition to the Christmas decorations and lights, check out my post about the Winter Safari and Festival of Light at Longleat.

U.S.-based Christmas-themed cocktail bar "Miracle" has come to London as a special pop-up at Henrietta Hotel in Covent Garden for the second year in a row. They are serving up festive drinks in holiday glassware with an abundance of nostalgic 1970s-decade Christmas decor throughout the bar. Viontage Christmas cards, illustrations, photographs, gardlands, tinsel, lights, and ornaments are all on display. Some of the seats contain a warm fur blanket to complete the cozy winter feeling, and classic Christmas songs were being played. Anyone who visits will immediately be transported to the Christmas of their childhood.

I went along recently to Miracle to enjoy the Christmas atmosphere after I enjoyed my visit last year, which I posted about here: Christmas Cocktails @ Miracle at Henrietta

This year, they had a couple of new cocktails with a few of the old favourites. The SanTaRex comes in a T.Rex with Christmas hat glass, and it is a cocktail blended with Whisky, sherry, apple cider, lemon juice, hard cider, and apple bitters. Yippee Ki Yay Mother F*****r! is served in a glass shaped like Santa's trousers and boots and is made of different types of rum, orgeat, and pineapple. Gingerbread Flip comes in a festive glass and is made of Whiskey, gingerbread syrup, tiki bitters, egg, and ginger cookie crumbs.

My favourite cocktail of the three that I tried was the Yippee Ki Yay Mother F*****r! In addition to cocktails, the venue also serves small snacks to help absorb the cocktails, which do dangerously go to your head. Like last year, Miracle pop-up bar helped to get me in the Christmas mood.

Each year, Carnaby Street in London hangs new Christmas lights with last year's popular piece being a tribute to musician Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" song and a display of props used in the film that came out last year. Carnaby's lights are the only lights in London that change each year, although Seven Dials seem to be changing their lights every year now for the past three or four years, but these are not nearly on the same scale as Carnaby Street. This year, Carnaby Street has gone with an environmental theme: One Ocean, One Planet. This theme, dubbed Project Zero, is about protecting the planet's oceans.

Over 1,500 plastic bottles and old fishing nets have been used in this year's Christmas lights in Carnaby Street. The seascape features a sea turtle, dolphin, whale, seahorses, coral, starfish, a shoal of fish, seaweed, and much more.

In addition to keeping with the sea theme, many illuminated jellyfish have been hung on the side streets around Carnaby Street.

Ganton Street's giant plug artwork has its own sea creature, albiet a fictional one.

Also, the lightbulb art is still hanging proud down by Kingley Court. This isn't a Christmas installation, however. These lights are displayed all year.

To see previous Carnaby Street Christmas lights in my blog, see the below posts:

• Carnaby Street Christmas Lights Celebrate Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody"
• Carnaby Christmas Carnival
• Carnaby Christmas Revolution
• Carnaby Christmas Party
• Robins
• Santa
• Rolling Stones (rock and roll)

"Magical birds and festive feathers" is the theme of the Christmas decorations at Leeds Castle this year, and that is not all that visitors can find at Leeds Castle for the Christmas season. A Christmas market is also on the lawn in front of the castle, and it has several wooden buildings where visitors can buy gifts, food, drink, listen to live music, and use the fairground rides. The castle's rooms are decorated and can be seen until January 1st, but the Christmas market is only on weekends until the 15th of December.

Along with the "birds and feathers" theme, younger visitors to the castle can count the number of birds in each room after admiring the decorations, such as a group of blackbirds escaping from a pie or a group of owls outside bird cages. There are also robins and bird feathers adorning the boquets of flowers or creating wreaths.

The Christmas market sold treats, such as cupcakes and samples of items to try and then buy as gifts. I also had a hot chocolate, which came with a cute gingerbread man and a candy cane.

The walk back to the car was sunny with these golden leaves clinging onto the trees and nice views of the castle from the other side of the lake.

When I arrived, there was a layer of frost in the little shaded enclosure on both sides of the stream going into the parkland. It was a cold morning, and the frost failed to melt even though it was past 11:00 in the morning.

Have you ever been to Leeds Castle at Christmas?

Chocolate, beauty, and toy advent calendars are popular advent calendars, and I have a gin one this year but was also looking for something a little different. This year, I opted for a luxury perfume advent calendar: Penhaligon's Advent Calendar. Penhaligon's is a luxury perfume brand, and the advent calendar contains a selection of perfumes, lotions, and a candle. The advent calendar is perfect for trying out new scents, and the scents themselves come in a generous little bottle with many of them lasting a minimum of at least three uses.

The advent calendar came in a well-made box with individual boxes with an item for each day. The front of the box contains a vintage-inspired Christmas scene with the interior boxes decorated like letters. I opened up mine early, so do not read on unless you don't mind seeing spoilers. Keep reading below to see what was in each numbered box.

• Halfeti Body & Hand Wash 30ml
• Cairo 10ml
• Artemisia 5ml
• Blenheim Bouquet 5ml

• Cousin Flora 10ml
• Empressa Body & Hand Lotion 30ml
• Iris Prima 5ml
• Juniper Sling 5ml
• Endymion Body & Hand Wash 30ml

• Cousin Matthew 10ml
• Luna 5ml
• Orange Blossom 5ml
• Quercus 5ml
• Rose Lip Balm 15g

• Violet Lip Balm 15g
• Heartless Helen 10ml
• Luna Body & Hand Lotion 30ml
• Juniper Sling Body & Hand Wash 30ml
• Empressa 5ml

• Endymion Concentre 5ml
• Terrible Teddy 10ml
• Vaara 5ml
• Halfeti 5ml
• Elisabethan Rose 10ml
• Maduro Leaf Candle 75g

The little envelope contains a free perfume-profiling experience with information on how to book. I am looking forward to using these to decide my favourite scent.