A Lady in London

Christmas has come to London. No matter that it’s only mid-November; the city is buzzing with Christmas cheer. Last week Justin Bieber turned on the Christmas lights at the Westfield Stratford City and Westfield Shepherds Bush shopping malls. Last night I walked around Covent Garden and saw long luminescent strings hanging from tinsel snowflakes. Get into the spirit, people. It’s Christmas in London.

From decorations in shop windows to “Arthur Christmas” paraphernalia spanning Regent Street, you can’t go anywhere in London without being reminded of the impending Yuletide. And it’s not just lights, either. It’s also sound. Girl band The Saturdays switched on the Christmas lights on Oxford Street on November 1st (so early!) and sang their new Christmas single ‘My Heart Takes Over’.

Then there’s the ice skating rinks. A couple of weeks ago I saw the Somerset House ice skating rink being constructed on the Strand. Last week at WTM I went to a dinner in Canary Wharf and saw a large skating rink going up in Canada Square Park. In the coming weeks, rinks from Kew Gardens to the National History Museum will open in full force.

That’s to say nothing of London’s Christmas markets and festivals. From Hyde Park’s Winter Wonderland to the Christmas Chocolate Festival and the Real Food Christmas Market on the South Bank, the city will come alive with cheer. Add to that the giant Taste of Christmas festival at the ExCeL centre and the seasonal excitement is almost overwhelming.

Businesses all over the city are taking full advantage of the Christmas season. Pubs have wasted no time in putting chalkboards outside with messages encouraging passersby that it’s never too early to book their Christmas party in London. Restaurants have started promoting their special Christmas menus, and barmen are creating Christmas cocktails.

I recently experienced this phenomenon at a very early Christmas dinner. The Malmaison Hotel in London invited me and several other London bloggers for a preview of their seasonal offerings. We started out at the bar, where we enjoyed canapes and sipped festive Avant Noel cocktails. Bright pink in color, they were all raspberries and Champagne, and were created just for Christmas.

From there we moved onto the hotel’s private dining room for Christmas dinner in London. The space was decorated with traditional Christmas crackers, which we wasted no time in popping open to discover our toys. From there we enjoyed a meal of everything from cheese and onion tarts to pumpkin ravioli to decadent chocolate Christmas logs.

To top off the menu, we were given mince pies to take home. It was my first of the season, and I have to admit that the tiny parcel of fruit and dough did a great deal to get me into the spirit.

I’m glad it did, too. This will be my first Christmas in London in the five Decembers that I have lived in the UK. I’m a bit nervous to brave the cold after spending the last four in Australia, Namibia, Madagascar, and Singapore. But after all of the build-up and anticipation, the lights and the ice, I look forward to seeing how the actual day of Christmas in London compares with the celebrations in other parts of the world.