Christmas in London 2024

Happy holidays to everyone in 2024! Just like last year, I am posting this on New Year's Eve as I had a very busy Christmas as always. Ever since 2019, I have been going with my mother to see the Christmas lights and decorations in London, and ever since 2021, I've been blogging about what I've seen and taken photos of there. This year was no different, though we did have a longer day due to a Christmassy trail that we had to start off with.

We started out with Wild in Art's Penguin Parade round the Fleet Street Quarters. I always love visiting Wild in Art trails, and this was a perfect way to get warmed up for our evening walk. There were twelve penguin statues overall with all sorts of creative designs, including one designed to look like a kingfisher! This one here is modelled on Buddy the Elf.

Buddy the Elf Penguin, painted by Megan H Smith-Evans.

This is the kingfisher one I mentioned. It combines the build of a penguin with the design of a kingfisher in order to create a "kinguin".

Kevin the Kinguin, painted by Caroline Daly.

This one has different cats and dogs dressed up in Christmas attire.

Santa Paws, painted by Jessica Perrin.

After doing the trail, we set off for Piccadilly. Fortnum & Mason's, as always, did not fail to impress with its magnificent window displays. I am sadly unable to display all of them here despite them all being amazing, but I will show some of my favourites. Here's one involving two pelicans for instance, with some mice watching them.

Here's one with a Christmas crocodile having its nails painted by a mouse.

The mice also pop up in this window display with a reindeer wearing a scarf.

As you can probably tell from the way the windows of Fortnum & Mason are lit up here, we came on the 3rd December.

After this, we went into Waterstone's for an afternoon drink. The hot chocolate did not have whipped cream and marshmallows this time round, but we did have an amazing ginger swirl. Utterly sticky on the fingers and truly delicious.

Afterwards, we went round the children's section of the library for a bit. The Christmas tree was in a different spot to where it has been for the last few Christmases, but it still had the nice decorations on it including the lollipops.

When we had finished browsing Waterstone's we headed out to continue our journey. Piccadilly had the same angel models as before, but they seemed to have cut back on them so there were only two that we saw this year. Regent's Street was pretty the same as well, without any of the angel models removed. I will only show a picture from Regent's Street that I took from a different angle this year since they tend to be the same every year and the Piccadilly ones came out rather blurry.

I'm not sure what street this was, but I liked the phrase and design of the lights here.

Soho had the lights designed by the children again. I wasn't able to see all of them, though I would have loved to as they were some of the best Christmas lights in London this year. Here's one design involving a robin.

And here's one of a Christmas dog.

Carnaby Street wasn't up to the same standard as it has been for the past few years. It mainly consisted of golden cuboid shapes, and though they looked nice, I was still hoping for something like the marine animals or insects from previous years. That said, there were still some good decorations involved in it, including this shape.

They also had some nice Christmas trees on the side including this one.

Liberty's seemed to have a rather divisive window display this year, with it being inspired by the Wicked film that came out recently. One woman who passed by was particularly outraged by this display, though I couldn't help but end up loving its appearance. This window I thought was gorgeous with Glynda being made from pink flowers and Elphaba being made from green ferns.

This window next to it also went with the floral themes.

I thought this window display looked pretty good. I don't remember what the shop was, but I just thought that it was a nice message.

Next to it was this pile of presents with some model houses within it.

Oxford Street had the same stars as always, but John Lewis was decorated with giant snowball shapes.

The window displays were very creative this year. Here is one featuring a giant snowballs with toys stuck to it.

This one features a giant advent calendar with toys next to it.

Here's a close-up of some of the toys in the window display, along with a toy mouse hidden in the advent calendar. Apologies for any blurriness.

Selfridge's usually varies in its quality of window displays, but this one had to be one of their best. One of the windows featured a colour display that was clearly evoking Wicked (just like Liberty's), but everything else was incredibly Christmassy. The stalactites here remind me of some of the art installations by the artist Pip & Pop. ^_^

This window display in particular won me over, especially thanks to the squirrels in it. You cannot go wrong with those creatures in my mind, especially if they're the red variety. Here's a photo of the squirrels up close.

Here are some jazzy Christmas trees in one of the displays here.

The side of Selfridge's had some rather surreal and colourful designs in its windows. Here is one of them.

We had to pop into Marks & Spencer's for a bit to get some Christmas shopping, which meant that there was stuff inside to take photos of as well. This year, M&S had a thing for snowmen built with disco balls, and Piccadilly had one of the most impressive displays of it with this snowman inside a giant snowglobe.

After passing some more decorations and Christmas trees on the streets that I am sadly unable to post due to there being too many people near them to crop out, we finally headed back from another satisfying walk. We weren't able to see what London Waterloo had for its giant Christmas tree this year due to having to visit different stations in order to do the trail earlier that day, but the trail itself more than made up for it.

Anyway, I hope everyone has enjoyed whatever December holiday they celebrate normally, whether it's Christmas like I do or something else. Above all, I wish everyone a happy new year and I hope I'm able to do another one of these blog posts at the end of 2025! :D

Seeing The Christmas Lights 2023

I haven't really been posting much on my blog this year, due to focusing on my job and sorting out my mental health. However, if there's one thing I would never forget to post about, it's my experience seeing the London Christmas lights each year.

I uploaded this year's blog post a bit later than I usually do. Usually, I tend to upload it before Christmas Eve, but due to having so many things to sort out beforehand, such as getting cards and gifts for relatives and sorting out visits to relatives, I had to upload it after Christmas Day instead. Fortunately, I have managed to upload it on New Year's Eve, which I myself feel is a decent time to put it up on.

This year's trip took place on the 14th December - I can tell because the TV special Dynamo is Dead was airing that night and the train stations were showing adverts featuring a timer for how many hours were left before he was buried alive. When I first entered London, it was at five hours left. Those I will not show any photos of, as they didn't relate with the Christmas lights at all, and besides, why would I take photos of them anyway?

Random anecdotes aside, the first Christmassy place we passed was the Ritz hotel. They always have the nice Christmas wreaths hanging down with the baubles on.

Along the way, we got to see this display on Bond Street, which has been there before but always looks magnificent.

Along with these decorations on Burlington Arcade.

Fortnum & Mason's had their elaborate window displays as always. For starters, they showed the year on the side of their building as usual.

As for what was inside the windows on the bottom floor, they really won me over.

They even featured a miniature version of their shop in the shop windows.

The church had their Christmas tree up again, so of course I had to take a photo of it.

As usual, we stopped in Waterstone's to have our afternoon festive feast. I had my hot chocolate with whipped cream and marshmallows as usual, but this time the treats we had were a cinnamon bun and a toffee apple blondie. They were absolutely delicious and I wish that the toffee apple blondie was offered throughout the whole year rather than only Christmas due to how much I loved it.

Once we'd finished our food and drinks, we looked round the bookshop to have a look at the books and decorations. These are some of my favourite decorations.

After our time in Waterstone's, we headed on down Piccadilly Street and then Regent Street, which have the same angel decorations as usual. Here's a photo of the Regent Street one.

There were some really good shop window displays as well. This one was for Barbour, who did the Paddington-themed one last year, only this time it was themed on Shaun the Sheep. Notice the sheep-themed pun they used in the window based on their name.

And here's another one for another shop featuring a gingerbread man, who somewhat reminds me of the one from Shrek.

On the way to Carnaby Street, we went through the Soho area, meaning that we got to see the Christmas lights designed by children again. I always love seeing these, and I love the fact that my own hometown does the same thing as well so I can see them anytime I like. Here's one featuring a snowman.

Carnaby Street's theme this year was space. This one was absolutely gorgeous, as Carnaby Street displays usually are. Here are some highlights.

And here's Saturn, arguably the centrepiece of the display.

Conduit Street still had its holly decorations from last year. We didn't end up going down that street, but I was able to get a photo of them.

On the same street I was waiting on while taking a picture of the Conduit Street lights was this decoration here, which I assume was part of Regent Street.

Oxford Street had the same star decorations from last year. These looked particularly pretty when against the black night sky.

We managed to pass by John Lewis on Oxford Street, at which point we realised that the front of it was decorated with the singing venus fly trap Snappy from their 2023 Christmas advert.

I get a little bit cynical about British Christmas adverts these days, as they tend to essentially be short films with nothing to do with what the company is actually selling except for their name popping up at the end, but it was such a lovely surprise to see that. We also saw the advert being played in the shop windows and I am not afraid to say that my heart melted when I watched it. Definitely check it out while you can. As a bonus, here's a model of Snappy in one of the shop windows.

Just for fun, I'm going to upload a picture I took later in the month of another model of Snappy that was at Kew Gardens as part of their own Christmas lights trail.

One of the last window displays we saw was the one for Selfridge's. I missed the display last year due to a lack of time, but I did hear that it wasn't up to their usual standards. This one however was amazing and easily one of their best displays of all time. It was themed on a show being put on by different representatives of Christmas. Here are some of the stars who performed in the windows, with the curtains opening and closing on certain occasions.

Culminating in Santa waving to the audience next to one of the fanciest cars you could possibly imagine.

On the side of Selfridge's (I don't remember if this was a smaller display they had or part of another shop) were these vintage-style cutout displays, which really made you feel like you were looking back on a Georgian, Victorian or Edwardian Christmas with a magical touch to it.

Our final stop was Waterloo station. This year, the tree was themed on the Kate Spade brand and shaped like green boxes stacked on top of one another. But what really won me over were the little toy trains whizzing round the tracks around it, which you can just see in this photo if you look closely enough (the close-up shots I took came out blurry due to the movement).

Overall, a really wonderful Christmas experience. And I wasn't even that bothered by the trains running late home that night due to how much I enjoyed seeing the lights.

I hope everyone has had a happy Christmas and enjoys the new year, whatever it offers us. As for myself, the new year starts with celebrating my dad's birthday followed by making the most of the Christmas season until the 6th January. Either way, see you all next year and hopefully I'm able to upload some more blog posts in the process! :D