The twelve days of my London Christmas.
As we ventured off to Norway for Christmas last year, staying in London for Christmas was a real treat this time. London certainly goes all out for Christmas: fairy lights galore, department stores are decoration-mad, and the people crush on Oxford Street, or in Harrods, is only to be experienced to be known.
As I work just a couple of blocks south from Oxford Street (where my bus also drops me off), my stop-drop-and-roll to battle the Christmas shoppers was a daily occurrence. Being little, I had the advantage of weaving my way through the crowd, but at the end of a long day at work (well it felt long seeing as the sun didn’t rise until 9am and it was to bed by 3.30pm!) the last thing I felt like doing was going against the tide up Oxford Street. Or being crushed into a line onto the bus and hoping for a seat. You know, because all that shopping has to sit somewhere on its journey home, right?
Harrods: our near death experience!
I decided to buy some lovely Harrods Christmas decorations for my Mum for Christmas as she had visited us in September, and it was a nice reminder of her time here in London that she could reflect on every time she put up our Christmas Tree at home. But, when we lined up on Nov 30 at 11.15am just to get into Harrods (Was there a sale we wondered? Was someone famous inside? Why all the commotion?) we were every man for themselves in the Christmas department. And the food department. And the perfumery department. And wait, yes, all of them. Once we had selected our Christmas purchases, we were dismayed when we were informed by the customer service attendants that we could not purchase anything before midday! It was 11.30! We had to “browse” in a crush where you could barely move for 30 minutes without going insane!
We kept out cool, we got into a cashier line and waited. Once through the line, we made a beeline for the exit. Harrods and Christmas? A London experience. But never again!
Work Christmas Party x 3
Due to the current economic climate, Christmas cheer was a little more limited when it came to free champers from your employers. I wasn’t alone in working for a company that had to scale things a little bit back this year – I was able to enjoy our big company do in the New Bond Street galleries (sampling Clemintine Martinis, Pie & Mash and karaoke during the evening), whilst also enjoying a BYO (now buy your own!) Marketing department Christmas lunch at Cha Cha Moon’s near Carnaby Street (http://www.carnaby.co.uk/stores/stores_item.cfm?store_id=255&cat_id=8 ) where a main set us each back approx 3.50 GBP each! Our Marketing division (marketing, design, display, magazine, catalogue production etc) enjoyed a BYO Sainsbury’s wine & cheese evening on a desk in our department, loving decorated with hand-made banners and snowflakes courtesy of us! It was probably the funnest one of the three, finishing up about 9pm and full of lovely wine and cheese! Plus as I spend most of my time working with these departments it was really lovely to celebrate with them.
Christmas Day
Santa was working against me this year, and I came down with the flu on the 23rd December which prevented me from joining in some of the pre-Christmas cheer (including Xmas Eve drinks with Simone). However, on the big day, enjoying the comforts of my own home and central heating Nick and I enjoyed a lovely London Christmas. No snow, but still!
We woke up about 8am and did all of our Christmas calls to our loved ones in Australia until about 9am. It was nice to hear that everything at home was how it should be – bloody stinkin’ hot, with everyone enjoying cold platters and plenty of booze late into the summer night! Following our calls, we went to do the annual present opening. How excitement!
My dear St. Nick spoiled me rotten. I received so many lovely presents. Of course, I had to try and wear them all at once – all day! We spent the day lounging about, watching DVDs (apparently that’s what the British do) and preparing for our turkey feast that night.
Nick became the TURKEY MASTER this Christmas. He cooked up the most delectable succulent bird, stuffed with sage & lemon, and some lovely roasted parsnips, potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots and beans. Melanie joined us for dinner after she had finished work that day. We enjoyed Christmas crackers, silly hats, jokes, turkey, champers, santa hats, and apple pie before retiring to bed late into the night.
A quiet Christmas, but a lovely & scrumptious one too!
Iceskating at Somerset House
As we iceskated at the 02 and Tower Hill icerinks last year, I was very keen to experience Somerset House for this one. We arranged with Melanie, Nath, Tim and us to go on the 30th as it proved very difficult to get into a session. It is the most popular ice rink in London!
We met for dinner at 6pm in Covent Garden at the lovely Le Café du Jardin, a French restaurant Nick and I enjoyed before the Lion King upon my return to London. We could enjoy the set menu for 2 courses + coffee for 13 pounds (http://www.lecafedujardin.com/)! A delectable, and cost-effective pre skating feed!
Somerset House is truly the prettiest ice skating rink of them all. It is so picturesque, with it’s Tiffany Christmas tree and majestic building backdrop. As usual the blades were blunt, but that did not deter us from very much enjoying our skating time and helped me to slowly hone my ice skating skills. We should really go ice skating more often! I love it!
