Christmas in London

A poster on Tripadvisor London Forum does a very good guide each year on the ins and outs of London over the festive season. It wiil be worth your while to take a look at that. ............ The basics are that most things including public transport will be shut from mid to late evening on Christmas Eve until Boxing Day (26th) when there will be a Sunday service. .......... You will need to book for lunch/dinner on Christmas Day for the few places that will be open but bear in mind you will have to walk or take a taxi (who are allowed to add a premium to the normal fare) on that day. There will also be some Indian/Chinese/Thai/Turkish etc restaurants open. ............... Take the children to a traditional Christmas Pantomime or ice skating at the Tower of London or Somerset House. Carol singing around the Christmas Tree in Trafalgar Square or one of the many Christmas concerts around. Check the websites of any places you want to visit to see for their opening hours over the period.

We did that last year with our young adult children. We rented a flat and went to the local Sainsbury's for food for Christmas eve (very busy but so much fun to see how different British & American stores are!). We had spent most of Christmas Day walking around London. Our flat was near Regent's Park (Primrose Hill area) and we walked down to Westminster Abbey and back. It was great! Not very crowded (esp. compared to the next several days) and we had a wonderful time. We passed quite a few open places to eat. I'd tried to make reservations for one of the Sofra (turkish) restaurants for Christmas dinner but, despite several very nice emails back & forth, never got it settled. As it turned out, we walked past it and saw not only was it open, but there was no need for reservations. In our case, we had so many left-overs (and we wanted to watch the Dr Who Christmas special!) that we ate at the flat. We ended up eating there on the 26th. There were even more places open on the 26th. We found plenty of things to do on the 26th, almost every place we wanted to see was open. On Christmas Day there were practically no people at Buckingham Palace, we walked right up to the gate and watched the guards and got our fill of staring at the palace and the surrounding gates and the Victoria Memorial.

For some reason I could only post part of my reply (even though I still had characters left). Our daughters were 20 & 23 and we must have stopped at every shoe store with a sale sign ;-) We were in London from 12/24 - 1/1 and went to: Westminster Abbey London Eye 2 West End shows (paid full price because the ones we wanted didn't have discounted seats & we hadn't wanted to make any commitments before we got there) 1 was on New Year's Eve. Watched the fireworks from near the top of Regent's Hill, great fun! Walked around a lot! Churchill War Rooms British Museum Hampton Court Palace Fulham football game (we had to stay up late to call early London time to get tickets, it was so worth it!) We saw a Panto in Cardiff....it was tons of fun! We tried to eat in "non-chain" pubs, harder to do than you'd think. The Windsor Castle pub in Kensington was great! We found it on-line & made a special trip to find it. http://www.thewindsorcastlekensington.co.uk/

Unless you want to take your chances, I would try and reserve at your hotel (or one of the big hotels) for Christmas dinner. Boxing Day things are a lot easier

I'd take my chances rather than have an expensive hotel dinner, but that's just us! And, I suppose, it depends on where you are staying (not all hotels have dinner). As I said, we are big on walking, and was surprised at how many open places there were on Christmas Day since we'd been told that London pretty much shuts down. That (& the cost of 8 nights in a hotel for 4 adults) was why we rented a flat. But we only ate our breakfasts there. London over Christmas was great!

Be aware that this year Christmas falls on a weekend and so does Boxing day. That means that at least Monday and possibly Tuesday will see limited service, with some things closed.

Thank you - everyone - for your great advice! It helps so much to hear from travelers who are "in the know"!

Last year Christmas & Boxing Day also were on a weekend, and while we were concerned about Monday closings, we never were at a loss for something to do in London! You'll have a blast!

How did you find the flat to rent?

I spent a lot of time searching on a bunch of sites but I ended up going through one of the big vacation home rentals. I also did a google search on the owner to confirm it was legitimate because there are some scams out there. It was a 2 bedroom (one with a queen & one with 2 twins) with a small bathroom (sort of funky with the toilet in a room down the hall and the shower, sink & tub behind a curtained area) and small kitchen/living area/table but it was fine for us. There were lots to chose from, we had a pretty strict budget so that limited us.

You must eat at Hakkasan. Hard to find, but the best Chinese I've ever had.

Last year Christmas was on a Friday. This year Christmas and Boxing Day is on Saturday and Sunday, so Monday and Tuesday are bank holidays. If you go to londontown.com and enter christmas 2010 it has some great information. Here is a website regarding Christmas day dining....http://www.londoneats.com/news/christmasdinner.asp