Christmas in London

Happy Christmas and New Year's everyone! It's December 27 now, so a couple days past the big day. But I wanted to tell you about what it's like celebrating Christmas over here in England and what we were up to.

Overall, Christmas in the UK is just like Christmas in the US. Everyone puts up Christmas trees, shops like crazy, and has a big turkey or goose dinner with their families and friends. The main difference I've noticed though, is that Christmas Eve isn't that big of a deal. Everyone still works and shops that day. But it's because they celebrate Boxing Day here on the 26th. I also know Canadians celebrate Boxing Day as well, and everything is closed and quiet on Boxing Day (and Christmas Day of course). Supposedly, Boxing Day was established a long time ago, for the servants of the house. Since they served their masters all day on Christmas Day, Boxing Day was the day for the servants to have a day off of work and celebrate with their families. Boxing Day is now also similar to the American "Black Friday" (the day after Thanksgiving). It's when the popular UK stores slash prices and the Brits get in long queues for stores to open at 5 a.m.

Last Friday we went to London for the day to check out the lights and see how Londoners celebrate. It was a bit cold, but definitely nice and brisk (and not raining)! We took the train in and headed to Hyde Park first where we heard there was a Winter Wonderland festival going on. We just strolled through, checking out the German Market and the big ice skating rink. Seems like Londoners love to go ice skating for Christmas, so there were like 8 different huge rinks set up around the city. Sounded fun to do, but realized it was just packed with people and little kids who couldn't really skate. So not sure that it would have really been worth the money. :)

Next we walked down to Trafalgar Square where the Norwegian Spruce Christmas tree is up and decorated. I have to admit, I was expecting it to be larger and more impressive, but at night when all lit up it was prettier. The tree is a gift from Oslo, Norway ever year since the Second World War when the British supported the Norwegian resistance.


Then we went to Covent Garden to see their shops and decorations. Covent Garden always has some interesting street performers - and this time they had these "angels" flying around!


The main event of the late afternoon was to walk along the infamous Oxford Street in London. It's probably a mile or two long of high street retail stores and department stores. It was absolutely packed with Christmas shoppers, but also small groups playing music, loads of street lights and just festive cheer. Was fun to see the department store window displays and join in the crowds.

We hadn't really taken time for any proper food, so we just stopped in a Italian restaurant by Leicester Square for dinner. And after that, we roamed around a bit more, stopped for hot chocolate, and then headed home. No pub this time!!