Results matching “Christmas”

Christmas has returned to London once again, and it has come earlier this year than it has ever done before with some light displays switching on from the beginning of November. This year has come around quickly for me, and I've struggled to get into London much due to work commitments. However, I have been able to get in to see most of the decorations that London has to offer this year. Below are the areas in London where you can visit the Christmas lights and decorations.

Covent Garden: Covent Garden never disappoints at Christmas, and there's also at least one pop-up of some sort to visit. There are decorations located throughout the market with an assortment of pretty Christmas trees. This year, the centrepiece inside the market is a red sleigh with seats to encourage visitors to take photographs. There's also some additional decorations hanging in the market this year, in addition to the large silver balls and mistletoe lights. There are several giant silver baubles hanging. The large Christmas tree here has also returned as well as the snowmachine that pipes out snow every hour.

The streets near Covent Garden also have their own decorations.

Connaught Village: Connaught Village near Marble Arch has a beautiful tree and lights, similar to last year.

Seven Dials: Seven Dials returns with gold orb lights and pink streaming lights along with new "Seven Dials Christmas" words.

Carnaby: This year's decorations on Carnaby Street have been reused from previous years. For more photographs, check out Canary Christmas Lights 'Carnaby Celebrates' 2022.

Soho: The HO HO HO lights have returned.

Connaught Hotel Christmas Tree: Each year for the past several years, the Connaught Hotel has had a Christmas tree decorated by an artist. This year, it's Suzy Murphy, and you can read more about it and see photographs here: Suzy Murphy Decorates the Connaught Christmas Tree.

Leicester Square: The market has returned and is popular.

Fortnum and Masons: For the past few years now, Fortnum and Mason is a giant advent calendar.

Regents Street: The lovely gold angels have returned; these were inspired by a traditional display and always seem to be a favourite.

St. Christopher's Place: This little alley (blink and you'll walk past it) near Selfridges off Oxford Street contains shops and restaurants, and they have new Christmas decorations hanging down the street.

South Molton Street: South Molton Street has its blue arches and a new blue Christmas tree.

King's Cross / St. Pancras Christmas Tree: This year, the Christmas tree is benefiting Prince's Trust.

King's Cross and Coal Drops Yard: Four Christmas trees are located here, and Coal Drops Yard has hosted some Christmas markets and other events this year. 

Duke of York Square and King's Road: Some of the shops decorate, and a Christmas tree and floral arch attract much attention.

The Ivy: The Ivy is always a favourite, but they have a muted display this year.

Mayfair: Several shops in this area now decorate for Christmas with additional ones added this year. The street has also introduced new Christmas lights this year - an update from the previous peacock lights.

Annabel's: Located off Berkley Square in Mayfair, this exclusive nightclub has become a firm favourite go-to for seasonal displays. This year, the building has been transformed into a giant carousel.

Hedonism Wines: Located not far from the top of Berkeley Square, this large wine shop always has a festive display outside, and this year's features a group of white reindeer.

Mount Street: Mount Street is the road that The Connaught Hotel and a lot of other restaurants and shops is situated on. There are a few places that decorate.

Grosvenor Square: The white roses have appeared for the third year in a row.

Miracle at 34 Mayfair: This restaurant, located in Mayfair close to Grosvenor Square, is decorated nicely out front with Christmas trees and gift boxes.

Mercato Mayfair: This indoor market is decorated with a large Christmas tree at the altar and themed drinks and food. (You can see my post about the venue not long after it opened here.)

Oxford Street: The star decorations have returned again this year.

Selfridges: The Christmas window displays are interesting this year.

ChinChin Labs Ice Cream in Soho: This venue in Soho and Camden have festive ice cream.

Milk Train in Covent Garden: Milk Train are always on game with seasonal treats and have a couple of different ones this year.

Peggy Porschen: Known for their beautiful cafe and treats, Peggy Porschen is a must to visit. This year, they had a range of Christmas treats to try.

Kingsway at High Holborn: These lights - blue, white, and gold bauble shapes - are new this year on Kingsway from Holborn to the Strand.

Not Christmas, but I had a couple of cocktails from Simmons bar while enjoying the walk around.

Previous London Christmas lights are below:

• London's Christmas Lights, Decorations, and Treats 2021
• Where to see London's Christmas Lights and Decorations in 2020
• Where to Buy Christmas-Themed Treats in London (2020)
• Where to see London Christmas lights and decorations (2019 Edition)
• Christmas in London 2018 - Lights and Displays
• Where to see London's Christmas Lights 2017
• London's Christmas Lights 2016
• Christmas Lights and Windows 2015
• London Christmas Lights 2014
• London's Christmas Lights 2013
• London Christmas Lights and Window Displays 2012

Previous London Window displays are below (I've phased these out as they have not been as interesting the past few years and more interest seems to be on the facade of the building as opposed to displays inside the windows):

• 2017
• 2016
• 2015
• 2014
• 2013
• 2012
• 2011

This year's Carnaby Street Christmas lights include a collection from the past previous several years of different Christmas displays that Carnaby Street has placed. Robins, giant snowmen, planets, palm trees, colourful birds, stars, jellyfish, paper chains, and neon signs are all included. The compliation of decorations forms this year's theme: "Carnaby Celebrates". Carnaby Street appears to follow the conscience trend to conserve and reuse, which is good for the environment and also helps to save money in difficult times. The Christmas lights at Carnaby Street are always amongst the ones that I look forward to seeing most.

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

• Carnaby Street Christmas Lights 2021: Christmas Kaleidoscope
• Carnaby Street Christmas Lights 2020: Choose Love
• Carnaby Street Christmas "One Ocean One Planet"
• 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)

The Connaught hotel on Mount Street in Mayfair has hosted a special Christmas tree designed by an artist for the past few years. This year's Connaught Christmas tree is designed by Suzy Murphy, who is from east London. The Christmas tree is nine-metre tall British Nordmann Fir, and it contains several white neon dogs, each decreasing in size from the bottom to the top of the tree. The neon dogs are a tribute to sketches of the artist's childhood pet dog, Toby. They symbolise a childhood experience through the pet.

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

At the end of November, I visited National Trust's Wimpole Estate to see their Christmas lights trail and illuminations. Members of the National Trust can get a discount on their tickets. This was my first visit to Wimpole's Christmas light trail, and I wanted to try a different Christmas trail this year. Wimpole is located in Cambridgeshire and has a lot of parkland, a hall, and a farm to visit. It is one of the larger estates and is popular with children due to the working farm that visitors can explore. The light trail covered the grounds of the hall to the farm and back again to the stables area. 

The first part to visit was the funfair, which had a few small rides for children. There were also a couple of food and drink trucks here.

Then, there was a woodland walk with some illuminations. 

On the way down to the estate, we saw some light sculptures and illuminated trees. Christmas music played.

Last year, we saw the LED trees at a couple of the estates, and there was one at Wimpole.

The front of the mansion was lit up with a Christmas tree at the front of the estate.

After walking around, we walked through a light tunnel...

...before seeing a beautiful mansion lit up with light projections with different colours and patterns. This was played to popular Christmas music, the song "Last Christmas" by George Michael.

After watching the light projection, we saw some illuminated hoops in trees....

...and icicles that were glowing.

Another tree was covered in stars with enchanting instrumentals. 

Disney music played "When You Wish Upon a Star" with some glowing orbs.

Along the trail, there were illuminated snowdrops....

...A fire garden...and thousands of lights.

We headed through the walled garden. The gate was open, and we heard vintage Christmas music in this part. The lights led us down to an impressive sculpture.

This continued via a red heart trail, which we also saw last year.

Outside of the walled garden was a field of "tents" or Christmas trees, which glowed different colours and set to the music from "The Snowman".

Around the corner was Santa's grotto with an illuminated tree and other Christmas items.

The half-way point was located here, and I had a hot chocolate before continuing on my way.

The glowing poppies in the trees were one of my favourite illuminations, and I saw them last year on another trail as well. 

Some of the stumps and limbs of trees had been illuminated along the trail on the way back.

Another tree has a few orange orbs hanging on it.

And another display included illuminated gifts and a robin.

Along the trail was a row of glowing roses, which I've also seen on previous trails.

The trees glowed with different colours along the trail.

One place had a lot of green lights that sparkled and moved around. 

Snowflake shapes with mirrors were set up to catch the light, but they did not work too well as there was a lot of shade here really.

The last part of the trail led back to the beginning with an illuminated walkway, showing different colours and patterns on the ground. 

The Christmas illuminated trail at Wimpole was not my favourite. Several of the illuminations I'd seen in previous years, and there wasn't really a large display. They could have added more lights on trees and more illuminations. There wasn't a lot of space around the trails themselves, and it would have been good for them to utilise some of the space around the larger areas. 

See my other posts featuring Wimpole:

Pre-Christmas Visit to Wimpole Estate
Autumn Visit to Wimpole Estate (Lockdown Edition)

At the end of November, I visited National Trust's Wimpole Estate in Cambridgeshire. The estate is one of the ones that has decorated for the Christmas season with a few of the rooms on the ground floor and the servants' quarters on the lower floor being opened with Christmas trees and other decorations on display. The estate has been farmed for at least 2,000 years and was an Iron Age settlement. The current house was re-lived in during the 1930s. The 1930s era is how the current house rooms are presented to visitors. In additon to the house and farm having decorations, Wimpole Estate has a large Christmas light trail for visitors to see at an additional cost.

The working farm has many animals to see, and two horses were wandering the grounds with their handlers. We saw them in the stables later, and they were dressed with green and red.

The first room off of the hallway when entering the house contained a Christmas tree and decorations on the fireplace.

The beautiful room through the hallway on the left, with the impressive dome, contained illuminated reindeer. Visitors could just peek inside.

On through the room was a Christmas tree, decorations, and wrapped boxes that children could stack.

This led to a smaller room, possibly a withdrawing room in an intimate size that contained a smaller Christmas tree and decorations.

The dining room was most impressive, laid out with Christmas decorations and set up for Christmas lunch.

After this room, we saw the staircase decorated with lights, and we headed down to the lower floor. The first room to see is the chapel room, which was lit up with candles and had people singing Christmas carols and playing the piano. I stayed for "Silent Night" and "Away in a Manger".

On through the hallway is the main housekeeper's room, which was decorated with a Christmas tree and set up for tea.

Next up was the butler's room, also decorated for Christmas.

There was another Christmas tree located next to the staircase in the servant's hall, and this led to the outside door at the side of the hall.  

The was a pleasant walk through the garden and views of the folly ruins, which I want to see sometime. Last time, we could not find the way inside the parkland until after we had walked across the entire estate (after visiting the walled garden and farm) and decided that we would visit it on a following visit with hopes of dry weather.

We visited the farm and saw the cattle, goats, rabbits, horses, chickens, and pigs.

Previous visits to Wimpole:

Autumn Visit to Wimpole Estate (Lockdown Edition)

The artist who specialises in creating felt items, Lucy Sparrow, is back in London with a pop-up Felt 'R' Us at Brunswick Centre at Russell Square in time for Christmas. The shop contains items from her other exhibitions, such as the cornershop and chemist. Visitors can purchase items and also view her installations "The Queen's Platinum Jubilee Lunch" and "Triple Art Bypass", which was featured in Grayson Perry's Art Club.

Visitors can purchase Christmas decorations and items from installations in London, New York, Miami, and Los Angeles.  

Below is the "Queen's Platinum Jubilee Party Lunch".

I purchased a few items and received a bag from the McFelt exhibition.

The pop-up was launched toward the end of November and is open until 8:00pm on the 24th of December.

For more Lucy Sparrow exhibitions on this blog, see:

Lucy Sparrow Bourdon Street Chemist
Lucy Sparrow's Cornershop in London 

London is home to several interesting food concepts, and Bubblewrap is one of them. Since 2015, they have been serving up ice cream inside a bubble waffle to Londoners. The concept is not new, and I've previously visited Nosteagia (post here), which create similar ice cream desserts in bubble waffles. Bubblewrap is a combination of Hong Kong street snack egg waffles from the 1950s and ice cream. They opened a pop-up at Berwick Street Market in Soho and launched their Chinatown shop in 2017. Their "bubble waffles" became a hit. I visited them over Christmas in 2020 with near-empty streets and ordered the Christmas special, a reindeer made of chocolate ice cream and white chocolate. 

Their little ice cream shop is located in Chinatown, right near one of the arches/pagoda. 

I was not too keen on the bubble wrap ice cream. I found it lacking in flavour and tasting a bit too dry and not pleasant. I much peferred Nosteagia as the flavour is always nice and the waffle always soft with flavour.

December 2022's Craft Gin Club subscription box arrived last week to mark the start of the festive season. In this subscription box, members receive a full-sized bottle of gin along with mixers and snacks to pair with the gin. The monthly box also contained the "Ginned!" magazine to accompany the month's gin and pay tribute to the location and season with many gin cocktail and food recipes. This month, the full-sized bottle of gin is Graveney Festive Fayre Gin, and it is a special edition for Craft Gin Club members. The distillery is based in Tooting in London. The gin is described as having a festive flavour of cranberry, clementine, and Christmas spices. To see what else was in the box, keep reading.

To pair with the gin of the month, I received three bottles of the Artisan Drinks Co. mixer in the Winter Tonic flavour. It is a citrus tonic with a hint of winter spice. It pairs nicely with the gin of the month. There are additional cocktail recipes in the magazine to use the Winter Tonic, but I had the standard gin and tonic with the garnish of the month. The garnish this month is Orange and Star Anise, which is a Christmas combination.

Awfully Post Christmas Pudding Popcorn was a treat. It's a sweet popcorn flavour, and I was happy that it did not taste like Christmas pudding to me, because I am not a fan. It tasted sweet with caramel flavour.

I also received a Christmas card in the magazine. Whistlefish is based in Cornwall, and all of their cards and packaging is made from recycled materials. I love the design of the card and colours.

Merry Mimosa cocktail syrup (from Craft Gin Club) and Cawston Press Sparkling Orange were two of the additional mixers, which are used to create the gin cocktail this month. The result is a festive twist on the traditional mimosa cocktail. Cawston's fruit juices are all made naturally with no added sugar. 

I received a couple more mixers. Tia Maria Matcha is another mixer in this month's box, and it's a cream liqueur with matcha flavour. As always, there's at least one cocktail in the magazine that uses it. A tiny bottle of Angostura Bitters is the second mixer received, and subscribers will get one of three flavours: cocoa, aromatic, or orange. A separate cocktail recipe accompanies each flavour.

In addition to the snacks previously mentioned, I received an additional three. (We really were spoiled this month.) I received a full-sized bag of Tyrrell's Lightly Sea-Salted hand-cooked crisps, which I've bought previously and do enjoy. Real Handful Brandy Cream Peanuts were the second snack, and they are suitable for vegans. Willie's Cacao was the third snack and is a chocolate orange with a mixture of milk and dark chocolate. The first two went down a treat, but I'm not a fan of chocolate orange as it makes me feel ill.

Another treat this month included a tea sampler of four different flavours of tea by Vahdam Indian Teas. The flavours include Mint Melody green tea, Cookies and Cream herbal tea, Earl Grey Citrus green tea, and Ginger Chocolate herbal tea. The teas can be used in cocktails. The brand is carbon neutral, and they donate 1% of profits to educate children of farmers.

Overall, I enjoyed the selection of products, and I enjoyed the gin of the month this month.

Scotton in Yorkshire was one of the least likely places that I would expect to find street art. Last year, I visited Yorkshire over the Christmas period and stopped off at The Guy Fawkes Arms, a pub that we discovered several years ago now and really enjoyed. The pub is named after the village's famous resident and Gunpowder Plot conspirator, Guy Fawkes. Some people attributed this stencil to Banksy, and his name appears near the work. However, it is not a Banksy. The stenciling is too crude, and it doesn't match the style at all. 

In the artwork, Guy Fawkes is seen carrying a wooden barrel and walking over to a flame where Covid-19 Passports are flying into the flames. There is a silhouette of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament in the flames.

It's not a Banksy, but it's a location where I would not have expected to find street art.

I visited the Grade I listed medieval moated mansion known as Ightham Mote in July. The mansion is located in Kent and is owned by the National Trust. This is my first proper visit; I had originally visited the mansion over Christmas in 2019 to see the house decorated for the season, but the upstairs and some of the other rooms were closed off, and the house was too busy to have a proper look. The rooms are fairly small in this mansion, so it can be a bit difficult seeing all that it has to offer. However, on this visit, I arrived in time to hear a little bit of history of the house before going in to have a look. 

Ightham moat dates from around the middle of the 1300s, and it changed family a few time before it became in dire need of repairs. It was purchased, and then sold again when the buyers realised how much work it required. It was purchased by an American man who had visited it as a child in the 1900s, and he restored it. It was later given to the National Trust, who also spent a lot of money repairing it. The visitor centre has some information about the repairs and excavations on site.

There is a short walk down to the mansion from the parking and visitor centre, and the mansion comes into view in part timber-frame and stone, surrounded by a moat. The entrance is around the front.

The first time I visited was in December a few years ago, so visiting the estate in the summer was different, and I enjoyed a wander around the gardens. The stable building was constructed at a later date and was originally constructed with three sides with an internal courtyard. It was used for guests and the staff.

The front of Ightham Mote from the courtyard of the stables. I'd just checked out the second hand bookstore and then waited for the talk about the history of the house.

I didn't go straight into the mansion as quit a large group had arrived, so I wandered around the garden first so that I could later enjoy the house without too many people around. There were some lovely flowers and views of the mansion.

I walked to the end of the garden in a little walk with views over the house and a lake.

I headed over the bridge into courtyard to take a look inside Ightham Mote. It has a little courtyard with clock, and one of the doorways leads off to a billiards room, and the other leads off to the main house through the Great Hall.

The Great Hall. There were freshly-cut flowers in some of the rooms, which was a nice touch.

The room off the Great Hall.

The Butler's Pantry. A locked safe would have stored more expensive items.

The crypt.

Upstairs in the house...

A beautiful carved fireplace.

A bedroom.

The chapel with its stained glass windows. The bottom panels were put in afterwards.

This large room was separated into two parts and functioned as a music room and games room.

The fireplace was ordered from a catalog.

The library was located back down the stairs, and it was one room that was originally separated into multiple rooms. It was simpified by painting in a neutral grey.

Back out into the courtyard, I went to check out the billards room.

More posts about Ightham Mote:

Christmas at Ightham Mote