Rebecca Engel
London does Christmas properly. The lights go up along Regent Street in November, the markets fill the South Bank, and the whole city spends six weeks looking like the inside of a snow globe, minus the snow. It rains far more than it snows here, and nobody seems to mind.
The tricky part is that there’s too much of it. Between the markets, the rinks, the light trails and the carol services, you could fill a week and still miss half of it. These are the best things to do in London at Christmas, so you can pick the few worth building a day around and skip the rest.
1. Skate At Somerset House
The courtyard at Somerset House turns into an ice rink every winter, with a huge lit tree in the middle and that Georgian building floodlit all the way around it.
It’s the prettiest rink in the city and it knows it. Sessions sell out, so book a slot before you go rather than turning up and hoping.
There are late night sessions with a DJ if skating in daylight surrounded by school groups isn’t the plan. The bar inside does hot drinks for anyone who would rather watch than fall over.
It’s on the Strand, about ten minutes from Covent Garden, so it pairs neatly with number nine on this list.
2. Walk Under The Regent Street Angels
The Regent Street lights are the big ones. Giant winged angels hang the length of the street, and they’ve been the same design long enough that Londoners would take it personally if they changed.
They switch on in November and stay up until early January. The street closes to traffic for the switch on itself, which is a proper event with music and a crowd.
Walk up from Piccadilly Circus toward Oxford Circus for the best view, with all of them lined up ahead of you. It’s free, it takes twenty minutes, and it’s the most Christmassy thing in central London.
Oxford Street and Bond Street have their own displays a few minutes away, so all three fit into one evening.
3. Ride The Big Wheel At Hyde Park Winter Wonderland
Winter Wonderland takes over a corner of Hyde Park from mid November to early January, and it is enormous. Roller coasters, a big wheel, a circus, an ice rink around the bandstand and a Bavarian beer hall that serves by the stein.
Entry is free at off peak times, though you still book a slot, and everything inside costs money. Rides run on a token system, so buy fewer than you think you need and top up later.
It gets busy. A weekend evening in December is shoulder to shoulder, and a weekday afternoon is a completely different day out.
Plenty of people write it off as a tourist trap. Ride the big wheel at dusk with the whole park lit up underneath and you’ll see why it sells out anyway.
4. See The Trafalgar Square Tree From Norway
The tree in Trafalgar Square is a gift from Norway. They’ve sent one every year since 1947 as thanks for British support during the war, and it’s cut from a forest outside Oslo.
It’s a Norway spruce, decorated the Norwegian way with vertical strings of plain white lights and nothing else. People expect something flashier and are always slightly surprised.
Carol singing runs underneath it most evenings in December, with a different charity choir each night. Standing in the square with a choir going and the fountains lit is free, and it’s quietly one of the best things to do in London at Christmas.
The National Gallery is right behind it and free to walk into, which makes a good warm up stop.
5. Follow The Light Trail At Christmas At Kew
Kew Gardens runs a light trail after dark through December, roughly two miles of it, and it’s the best one in the country.
The path winds past the glasshouses and through the trees with installations, fire pits, a tunnel of lights and a finale over the lake. Give it about ninety minutes at a walking pace.
It’s ticketed with timed entry and it sells out weeks ahead. If anything on this list gets booked first, make it this one.
Kew is a straight ride out on the District line, and it’s properly cold out there in the open, so dress like you mean it.
6. Shop The Southbank Centre Winter Market
The chalets along the river between the London Eye and the Southbank Centre are free to wander, which makes this the easiest market in the city to drop into.
It’s food heavy. Bratwurst, raclette, churros, mulled wine, and a bar built into a shed with a view across the Thames.
Nobody really comes here for the shopping. They come to walk the river with a hot drink while the lights bounce off the water, and that’s the right way to use it.
It runs from mid November through to Christmas Eve, and the walk east along the river past the National Theatre is worth doing while you’re there.
7. Catch A Panto At The Hackney Empire
Pantomime is the strangest British Christmas tradition and the one most worth going out of your way for. A fairy tale, a man playing an old woman, a villain the audience boos on sight, and a great deal of shouting back at the stage.
The Hackney Empire does the best one in London. It’s a restored Victorian theatre out east and the production has a reputation the West End versions don’t quite match.
The London Palladium runs the big star led version in the middle of town if a name on the poster matters.
Nobody explains the rules. When someone on stage asks where the villain went, you shout it back. Everyone does, including the adults who claimed they wouldn’t.
8. Sing Carols At St Paul’s Cathedral
St Paul’s runs carol services right through December, and singing under that dome with a full congregation is a different thing entirely to singing along at home.
Some services are free and unticketed, others are charity events with tickets. The free ones fill early, so turning up forty five minutes ahead is normal rather than keen.
If St Paul’s is full, St Martin in the Fields on Trafalgar Square does candlelit carol concerts most nights in December.
Southwark Cathedral near Borough Market is the quiet alternative, and it’s lovely at that time of year.
9. Stand Under The Covent Garden Tree
Covent Garden goes all out. A huge tree in the Piazza, oversized baubles strung under the market roof, and a mistletoe chandelier that ends up in everybody’s photos.
The Apple Market underneath sells the sort of thing you buy when presents have been left late, and the street performers work the crowd all through December.
It’s busy from about eleven in the morning until late. Come early if the photos matter, or come after dark and lean into the crowd.
Look for the giant reindeer that turn up somewhere in the Piazza most years. They are not subtle and the kids love them.
10. Buy A Wreath At Columbia Road Flower Market
Columbia Road runs every Sunday in east London, and in December the flowers make room for Christmas trees, wreaths and garlands.
It’s a narrow Victorian street with stallholders shouting prices over each other and tiny good shops down both sides. There’s carol singing from the pub end most Sundays in December.
Go early or go late. Mid morning is so packed that you shuffle rather than walk.
Even buying nothing at all, it’s the best hour you’ll spend in east London in December.
11. See The Fortnum And Mason Christmas Windows
The Christmas windows are a London institution, and the big shops spend eye watering sums building them.
Fortnum and Mason on Piccadilly is the classic. Liberty near Carnaby Street does the most tasteful, Selfridges on Oxford Street the biggest, and Harrods the most extravagant by a distance.
Walking between them costs nothing and fills an afternoon. Fortnum’s also has the best food hall in the country behind that window, which is a dangerous place to go present shopping.
By the second week of December there are real queues to photograph them, so an early start helps.
12. Eat Your Way Through Borough Market
Borough Market under London Bridge is at its best in December. Mulled cider, mince pies, cheese toasties, hog roast rolls and stallholders handing out samples of things you weren’t going to buy.
It’s a working market that gets absolutely rammed at Christmas. A weekday morning is calm and a Saturday is a slow moving crowd.
Buy the cheese for the trip home from Neal’s Yard Dairy at the edge of the market. It’s the best in the city and everyone local already knows it.
Southwark Cathedral is right next door if you need ten quiet minutes afterwards.
13. Skate Outside The Natural History Museum
The rink in front of the Natural History Museum sits under a lit tree with that gothic building behind it, and it’s the one most people picture when they think of skating in London.
It’s bigger than the Somerset House rink and rather less precious about itself. There’s a cafe on a raised deck in the middle for people who came to watch.
Book ahead, and make a day of it. South Kensington puts three of the best museums in the world within five minutes of the ice.
Other rinks worth knowing about are Hampton Court, Canary Wharf, and Queens in Bayswater, which is indoors and open all year.
14. Walk Leadenhall Market After Dark
Leadenhall is a Victorian covered market in the middle of the City, all painted ironwork and cobbles under a glass roof, and at Christmas they hang a tree in the middle of it.
It’s the one that turns up whenever a film needs old London. The Harry Potter films used it for the way into Diagon Alley.
The City empties at weekends, so a Saturday walk through gets you the place almost to yourself. Weekday evenings are the opposite, packed with office parties.
The pubs around it are proper old ones, and they’re heaving from about six.
15. Spend A Tudor Christmas At Hampton Court Palace
Hampton Court does Christmas the way Henry the Eighth did it, which means the Tudor kitchens fire up and cook the kind of feast that once took a hundred staff to get on the table.
The Great Hall gets decorated, there’s an ice rink out by the west front, and the palace is lit up after dark on some evenings.
It’s about thirty five minutes on the train from Waterloo, so treat it as a half day rather than a quick stop.
Go on a weekday and it’s noticeably calmer than anything in the middle of town.
16. Watch The Nutcracker At The Royal Opera House
The Royal Ballet dances The Nutcracker at Covent Garden every December and has done for decades. It is the Christmas show in London.
Tickets go fast and the good seats go first, but the amphitheatre seats up at the top are cheap and the sound from up there is fine.
English National Ballet usually stages its own version at the Coliseum a few minutes away, which is the way in if the Opera House has gone.
Either runs about two hours with an interval, and the second act is the one with all the music you already know.
17. Look Up At The Carnaby Street Lights
Carnaby doesn’t do angels or snowflakes. Every year it builds something completely different over the street, and half the fun is finding out what they’ve gone with this time.
Past years have brought giant flowers, a lobster, and a pop art explosion. It’s the least traditional display in London and the one Londoners photograph most.
The street is pedestrian only and the shops are mostly independent. Kingly Court just off it is a courtyard of restaurants with heaters, which makes a good place to stop.
Liberty sits at the end of the street, so the best of the windows is thirty seconds away.
18. Visit The Charles Dickens Museum
A Christmas Carol did more to shape the modern British Christmas than anything else, and the man who wrote it lived at 48 Doughty Street in Bloomsbury.
It’s the only one of his London homes still standing. The museum dresses the house for the season the way it would have looked when he lived in it.
The rooms are small and the whole visit takes about an hour. There are candlelit evening openings on some December nights that are worth timing a trip around.
It’s ten minutes from Russell Square and hardly anybody goes, which is a large part of the appeal.
19. Take The Kids To Hamleys On Regent Street
Hamleys is seven floors of toys on Regent Street, and it has been selling them since the seventeen sixties.
Staff demonstrate things on every floor, there’s usually a grotto, and the noise is considerable. It’s either the best or the worst hour of the trip, entirely depending on the company.
It sits right under the Regent Street angels, so it drops into the lights walk without a detour.
A weekday morning is the civilised way to do it.
20. Browse Greenwich Market Under Cover
Greenwich Market is covered, which counts for a lot in a London December. It runs most days with crafts and food, and fills out with Christmas stalls for the season.
Greenwich itself is the reason to make the trip. The Cutty Sark is beside the market, the Old Royal Naval College is behind it, and the park climbs up to the observatory with the whole city laid out below.
The boat down the Thames from central London takes about half an hour, and it’s much the best way to arrive.
There’s a proper pie and mash shop and a couple of good pubs round the corner when the market food is queued out.
21. See The Tree At St Pancras Station
St Pancras puts a tree under the glass roof of the station every year, and it’s never just a tree. Past ones have been built out of Disney scenes, out of books, and out of the London skyline.
It stands at the end of the platforms with those brick arches above it, which is a better setting than most cathedrals manage.
There’s a champagne bar along the platform and a market in the arcade below through December.
Best of all it’s a station, so it’s free and it’s open late, and it’s five minutes from King’s Cross if the trip is ending anyway.
When To Visit London At Christmas
The lights go up in early to mid November and the season runs to Twelfth Night in the first week of January, when the whole lot comes down at once.
The first two weeks of December are the busiest, because that’s when every office in the city holds its party. The week right before Christmas is calmer than most people expect.
The one thing to plan around is Christmas Day itself. There are no Tubes, no buses and no trains at all, nearly everything is shut, and the city goes very quiet. Boxing Day runs a limited service and the sales start.
Most of the best things to do in London at Christmas are free, so the money goes on the ticketed ones. Kew, the rinks, the panto and the ballet are the four to book weeks ahead.
Final Thoughts
London in December isn’t a city you can tick off a list. Pick three or four of these, leave room around them, and let the walking between them be the rest of the day.
For a first visit the shape that works is a lights walk one evening, a market and a rink on another, and one big ticketed thing like Kew or the panto.
Book the ticketed ones early and leave Christmas Day open. Nothing runs, and a walk through an empty London is far better than it sounds.
