Results tagged “Christmas”

Every Christmas for the past few years, Covent Garden brings us a themed Lego sculpture. This year's Lego is a full-sized Santa, sleigh, and nine reindeer (including Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer). The Lego sculpture in Covent Garden always proves to be popular with visitors to the area. This year's Lego sculpture was created by Duncan Titmarsh, and it took 700,000 bricks and thirty days to complete.

There's even a seat next to Santa so that visitors can sit next to him and get photographs to upload to social media. Visitors are asked to publish their "selfie" photographs to #LEGOsleigh on social media.

The Lego Christmas sculptures will be on display until the 29th of December. Make sure to walk around the sleigh; the gifts in the back of the sleigh are also all made of Lego. 

Last year, visitors could walk through a large snowglobe filled with London monuments made from Lego and the year before, a large Lego advent calendar allowed a 'window' to open up each day to display a surprise Lego Christmas sculpture.  

I was able to watch the Basingstoke Christmas Lights Switch On this year. The date of the switch-on was on Friday, the 21st of November. The Basingstoke Rock Band, Common Ground, and Concept provided some of the entertainment before the switch-on and fireworks display this year. The last time I saw this was in 2012.

Common Ground are a boy-and-girl band that won an award this summer. They sang a couple of their songs and a Christmas song, and I really liked them.

Common Ground

Concept is a boy band from Basingstoke, and they were on X-Factor this year, but they did not get past the judge's houses. Shame! They were really good and better than some of the acts that made it through to the live shows. They are quite popular now.

Concept

Concept

Keith Chegwin was the celebrity to turn on the Christmas lights. Every large city that has a switch-on event has a celebrity come to turn on the Christmas lights officially. Santa was also there, along with the two elves, who hosted the entertainment for the evening. Santa, the elves, and the band Concept joined Keith Chegwin in order to push the large button that turns on the Christmas lights.

I loved the expressions of them as they pushed the large button. This turned on a glowing Christmas tree in Festival Square and set off the fireworks on top of Festival Place shopping mall.

The fireworks were beautiful, and I got plenty of photographs of them.

Thanksgiving Day is in a few days, and the Christmas lights have started becoming switched on since the start of the month, so it's safe to start posting Christmas / holiday posts now.

This year's Christmas Lights Switch-On was better than the previous year that I went to see it. The fireworks were beautiful, and we had some good entertainment and bands. Enjoy.

When I visited the Ohio Amish Christmas Cookie Tour of Inns last December, some of the hotels and inns had gingerbread houses on display. The visitors could vote for their favourite gingerbread house at the end of their tour. I am not sure who won and the winner has not been announced anywhere online.

The following photos show some of the gingerbread houses on display, including one made of dried fruit, a barn one, and one inspired by the animated film 'Up'. I felt that all of them were creative in their own way, but I voted for the Christmasy green, white, and red one 'N & D Faculty Inn'.

Two of the gingerbread houses were completed by professionals over several months, and I liked this mock-Tudor timber-framed house with chocolate poptart roof tiles. In the above photograph, the last picture shows the second professional gingerbread house, and part of it is constructed from candycane sticks and hard boiled sweets.

Hannah's House had a small selection of gingerbread houses on display, but these were not a part of the competition. 

Every year, the courthouse in Newark, Ohio (Licking County Courthouse) is decorated with lights for Christmas. The courthouse has been lit for Christmas with since 1949. This past Christmas, I visited downtown Newark and got some photographs of the lights. I had pizza (Christy's Pizza) and frozen wine slushies from Buckeye Winery, which are both located downtown. In fact, the glow of the courthouse lights can be seen from the winery. 

Last December was extremely cold, and there was snow on the ground. This did not deter me from getting photographs. In fact, others were doing the same.

Some of the lights twinkled, such as the large snowflake decorations on the facade of the building.

Christmas trees, a Santa and snowman, and other light decorations filled the ground around the courthouse.

More photographs can be found on their official website and Facebook page: 
https://www.facebook.com/courthouselighting
http://www.courthouselighting.com/Licking_County_Courthouse_Lighting/Welcome.html
http://www.downtownnewarkoh.com

New street art appeared in the last couple of months with Christmas and New Year's themes. At the end of this entry, I have also added a few pieces that I photographed last year. Some of these no longer exist as street art is always changing, but I thought that I would include them. Artists Nemo, Nando Mambo, David Walker and others are featured.

The New Year's Eve piece is by street artist Zabou, who creates many stencil pieces in east London. The piece says "2014 has started. Let's get wasted!"

Zabou

Another piece to appear had appeared before Christmas and was located in the same place as Grafitti Life's Bart Simpson artwork. This piece, by Grafitti Life, features Bart and Homer Simpson and a Christmas tree. I am not sure what caused Homer to strangle Bart, but it may have related to the spray can under the tree and the words 'merry xmas' scrawled onto the wall.

Grafitti Life

One of the earliest Christmas pieces to appear was a whole building on Great Eastern Street painted with Christmas themes and words, including peppermint cane hearts, birds, holly, mistletoe, bells, crackers, Christmas pudding, and more.

Christmas building

With the theme of giving animals as Christmas gifts, artist Teddy Baden painted this warm-looking pug dog with the words "A dog is for life not just for Christmas" on a door in Shoreditch.

Teddy Baden

Another piece, a wintery one, included a skiier. 

Marino

Just off of Brick Lane, new Christmas pieces by Fan Horror Crew featuring balloon or sweets creatures appeared. These include a humbug-balloon reindeer or sheep and a licqourish snowman and balloon Santas and reindeer.

Fan Horror Crew

Fan Horror Crew

Fan Horror Crew

Additional work by a group of collaborative street artists also popped off just off of Brick Land and also off of Great Eastern Street. The following is by Lost Souls and SPZero. The other one is a contribution and appears off Great Eastern Street. These artists always collaborate on their work, and I saw this one and many others in progress. In particular, they have been busier in the past couple of months.

Lost Souls, SPZero

Captain Kris, Squirl, SPZero, Lost Souls

A Christmas tree and message appeared on a road in Hackney.

Truff-1

In addition to the Christmas and New Year's pieces, I've included some other artwork by other street artists below.

Nemo and Dias often create work featuring carrots or chillis. These can be seen over east London.

Nemo and Dias

Nando Mambo's work features realistic portraits of superheroes. Batman, Wolverwine, and the Incredible Hulk have all featured in Nando Mambo's work. The Incredible Hulk is the most recent piece, and I never got a photograph of the finished piece before I went on holiday.

Nando Mambo

David Walker uses spray paint to build up his artwork. A common subject is portraits, such as the two below that I photographed a little while ago now. More about David Walker can be found at http://www.artofdavidwalker.com/.

David Walker

Ozmo

Vinz


Rone with Nemo and Stik

Clet Abraham

Paola Delfin

Stika

Zadock

Just after Christmas, I visited the Illuminated Kew Gardens. This is their 'Christmas at Kew' event, which also contained a small Christmas market with a few shops for crafts and food. Before Christmas, it included a Santa for the children. A small trail throughout a part of the gardens was illuminated, and they had a couple of small talks and interactive displays for children. One included throwing small stones into a lake and hearing the noise projected. Another included hitting buttons to change the colour of the light projected onto a large tree. 

Dusk at Kew

King Williams' Temple

The trails included various types of lights or lanterns or illuminated designs onto pavement. I enjoyed the paper lanterns, photographed below, because they were different colours.

Paper lanterns

Seeing the trees illuminated in different colours around the lake with their reflections in the water was pretty to see. 

Illuminated trees and their reflections in Kew Gardens' lake

One of the interactive areas for children was listening to noise that seemed to come from this island of trees in the middle of the lake when stones were thrown into the water.

Reflections

Another interactive display was changing the colour of the light on three tall trees by pressing a button. When the colours matched on the trees, then something special would happen, but there were too many children pressing the buttons that we never did get to see what happened.

Illuminated trees

Further along the path, we came across a small fire garden where the lights were arranged in a spiral design.

Fire garden

One of the prettiest attractions was the illuminated (fake) lotus flower and the reflection of it inside a pool of water in one of the greenhouses. This was really beautiful and looked magical.

Lotus flower

Upon leaving the lotus flower greenhouse, we walked past the Victorian glass greenhouse to be treated to a small lgith display projected onto the greenhouse. Some of the lights were projected from inside, creating shadows of the tall plants. The light display was only short, so we stayed to watch it twice.

Lighthouse illuminated

While the trail was pretty, I was expecting it to be a little more Christmas-oriented with Christmas lights. There were not too many illuminations, and it was a slight disappointment. Despite trying to add a few things for children, I felt that they were a little bored and some seemed to be more interested in the planes flying overhead every three minutes. The Victorian lighthouse illuminated was nice to see, but I would have expected the light display to be continuous. The illuminated lotus was pretty, but the gardens were also very busy and this took away the magic. 

In December, I treated myself to the Festive Afternoon Tea at The Lobby Lounge at the Corinthia Hotel in London. The hotel is a five-star hotel located on Whitehall and just yards away from Embankment tube station and the Hungerford foot bridge. I had this tea just after Christmas as this was the only slot that I could get into with my schedule, but it still felt like Christmas at the hotel. The lobby was decorated with white and silver snow-covered trees, baubles in glass vases as centrepieces on tables and white roses. The large glass-domed ceiling and chandelier added to the grandeur of the hotel.  

The Lobby Lounge

The tables for two on the outer ring overlooked the windows that pointed to an inner courtyard. The tables were arranged with leather chairs facing angled toward the centre of the room. Each table was made to feel private with a frosted and decorated Christmas tree between each. 

Christmas in the Lobby Lounge

I had champagne to start, and the sandwiches followed. Sandwiches included smoked salmon with cream cheese, beef with mustard, egg mayonnaise, and goat's cheese with cucumber. After we had our fill of sandwiches (we were offered seconds), we ordered our choice of tea. I ordered the 'Afternoon at the Palace' tea, which was an easy-going special blend available at the hotel. My partner had the 'English Rose' as the 'Madagascan Vanilla' tea was out of stock. The rose tea tasted fragrant of roses, and it was enjoyable.

There is not a lot of room at the tables, but the staff had this covered. An extra smaller table was brought to hold our two teapots, and our festive pastries and scones arrived on a three-tier stand that could sit on the floor.

Festive tea on three tiers

The scones came with miniature pots of clotted cream and strawberry jam and raspberry jam. The scones tasted nice and were fresh, but I felt that they were a little too small and I wished that I had put a little less jam on my first one.

Scones with clotted cream and jam

The festive fancies had Christmas names, but I could not recall which each fancy was named. The first plate of festive fancies included a macaroon which I thought tasted a little like pumpkin but was told that it was Christmas pudding. I'm not fond of Christmas pudding, but the macaroon tasted nice. The other items included an apple-flavoured mousse, a coffee-flavoured biscuit with a Christmas-print chocolate on top, and a slice of lemon pastry. The lemon was my favourite.

A selection of festive fancies

The other plate of festive treats included a chocolate-cherry slice, another coffee-chocolate pastry, an orange bun, and a snowflake white chocolate mousse. 

Festive fancies

Festive tea fancies

Overall, the afternoon tea was a success - mainly for the ambience and the friendliness of the staff. The champagne hit the right spot, but I've had nicer tea. The pastries were not my favourite that I have had in my afternoon tea experience, but they were some of the prettiest that I have seen. The lemon pastry was my favourite, and I ended up leaving three of the others because I simply did not care for the taste. I loved the decoration and attention to detail.

Earlier this month, I went on the Christmas Cookie Tour of Inns, held in the Amish Country in Ohio. The tour involves a stop at one of twelve inns or hotels as designated on the map. At each stop, the visitor can look at some of the facilities and rooms that are designated as on display; each of these hotels were decorated for the holidays.

Visitors could help themselves to snacks and drinks at each stop, and many of these followed the holiday theme. In addition to free snacks, those visiting with tickets could also pick up a free special cookie at each hotel. The cookies were individually-wrapped, and the tour book contained a recipe for each cookie. The tour theme this year was 'gingerbread'. Many of the cookies contained ginger, and at each stop, the visitor could find a special gingerbread man. Some of the hotels also had gingerbread houses, and the visitor could vote for their favourite one.

Cookies

Barn Inn

Barn Inn is located near Millersburg, Ohio. The inn is a converted barn and former home of the Honey Run Dairy Company and contains its original beams. The barn was restored in 1997. The rooms on display were decorated with Christmas trees. In the main lobby above the doorway and shelving on the top along the ceiling were various Christmas items, such as a sleigh. The chandelier in the lobby had Christmas baubles hanging off of it. A neat idea seen in the hallway on the top follow, behind the gingerbread man, is a Christmas wreath made with deer antlers painted silver.   (Cookie: Gingerbread). 

The Barn Inn

The Barn Inn also included a wonderful table setting. I thought that this would be perfect afternoon tea. (I asked if they did do afternoon tea here, but they do not.) The table was decorated with a gingerbread and reindeer centrepiece with tinsel and baubles. Each setting included a gingerbread cupcake and a miniature gingerbread house over the side of the teacup. I loved this idea.

The Barn Inn

Ferngully Creek Cabins

These secluded cabins are located a few minutes from Berlin and Millersburg, Ohio. They are just off the main road and are located in a quiet grove of trees. The tour included visiting a couple of the different cabins to see how they were decorated. Each cabin contained all amenities needed for visitors expecting a relaxing trip: a kitchen/lounge, bedrooms, television, fireplace, Jacuzzi, and comfortable-looking bedrooms. The fluffy snowmen stood around the Jacuzzi was a cute touch in one of the cabins. Another cabin contained a Christmas display with trees and snowmen above the interior front door. One of the cabins had a large porch. (Cookie: Butterscotch Gingerbread)

Ferngully Creek

Hannah's House

Hannah's House is a five-room Victorian house located near Berlin, Ohio in a wooded area with waterfalls at the back of the house. When we visited, we parked up the road and waited for a horse-drawn wagon to take us and several other visitors to the house. We had a snowy horse-drawn ride down a lane and through a wooded area. The main dining room table in the house is laid with Royal Albert plates. (Cookie: Peanut Butter Oatmeal)

Hannah's House

Berlin Hotel and Suites

The Berlin Hotel and Suites has a movie theatre, fitness room, indoor pool, hot tub, sauna, and racketball court. We did not spend long looking around the hotel. The tree in the main lobby is decorated with lime green and red ornaments (a modern twist to Christmas), and I enjoyed the cute gingerbread house on the lobby desk. (Cookie: Pumpkin Ginger Chocolate Chip)

Berlin Hotel & Suites

Guggisberg Swiss Inn

Guggisberg Swiss Inn is located near Charm, Ohio. A duck pond is located at the back of the inn, and the Amish Country Riding Stables are located on site; guests can take horseback rides with this company and wintertime horse-drawn sleigh rides. The inn resembles a Swiss chalet with a high ceiling in the lobby with a carved wooden clock and stuffed bear. (Cookie: Orange Jello)

Guggisberg Swiss Inn

Comfort Suites Berlin

Comfort Suites Berlin is located in Berlin, Ohio. The rooms we visited were decorated with Christmas throws and cushions on the beds and lights and pine branches throughout the room. The lobby was particularly nicely-decorated with a fireplace, Christmas trees, and other decorations. (Cookie: Pennsylvania Dutch Light Ginger)

Comfort Suites Berlin

Lodging on the Square

Lodging on the Square is located in the middle of Berlin, Ohio, with all of the tourist shops on the doorstep. (Cookie: Swiss Treat Bar)

Lodging on the Square

Berlin Grande

The Berlin Grande hotel is a four-storey hotel with modern design. Most of the decor was dark red and white with dark wood furnishings. The lobby was very large, and they served up warm cookies along with other nibbles and drink. We saw a choice of three different types of rooms, and they also have special rooms that pets can stay in. (Cookie: Red Raspberry Top)

Berlin Grande

Carlisle Inn Walnut Creek

Rooms at the Carlisle Inn in Walnut Creek are all decorated differently. The hotel has multiple stories with nice views. There were several areas throughout the hotel that were decorated Christmassy. (Cookie: Maple Snickerdoodle)

Carlisle Inn Walnut Creek

Wallhouse Hotel

Wallhouse Hotel is a new hotel with modern, energy-saving rooms and earth-friendly design. The hotel is located near Walnut Creek, Ohio. The decor uses lime green and grey and white colours. While I do like the colour combination and used it for my UK reception party, I think that is a bit strange for a setting in the Amish country. (Cookie: Holiday Ginger)

Wallhouse Hotel

Grapevine House

Grapevine House is accommodation located in Winesburg, Ohio. The accommodation contains different options - a house, converted barn. There are various amnieties on offer, and some of the rooms come with a living area and kitchen. A large porch spans the side of the house at the back, and there is a sculpted garden area. The rooms all looked comfortable and attention to detail was made to make the rooms and areas look Christmassy. One neat idea was a pair of old-fashioned ice skates making up the centrepiece of a wreath and a small bag of Christmas sweets tied onto the door knob for one of the rooms. (Cookie: Fudge Nut Bar)

Grapevine House

For more information about the tour, visit http://www.christmascookietour.com.

At the beginning of December, I made a trip to Frankenmuth, Michigan. I posted some photographs in the previous post of my trip: A Start to the Christmas Season in Frankenmuth, Michigan. Located in this town is the world's largest Christmas store, Bronner's CHRISTmas Wonderland. The Christmas store covers over seven acres, including landscaped gardens decorated with Christmas lights and Christmas items. A memorial chapel, the Silent Night chapel, is also included on site and is dedicated to the song and contains boards of the song written in different languages around the chapel. The interior of the store is also decorated with Christmas displays along the ceiling and above. When visiting, there's so much to see but do not forget to look above eye level at the displays.

I love glass ornaments, and I took a few photographs of these in the shop. Any subject that you could think of for any person would be made into an ornament: cameras, mobile phones, laptops, animals, and so on. Ornaments were grouped into several categories, such as by colour, by interest, by country, by animal/bird, by theme, and by job.

Exterior display

Happy holidays to everyone!

This year, Piccadilly Circus's Eros statue has been decorated for Christmas. The statue was sculpted by Alfred Gilbert and is not of Eros but of Eros' brother Anteros for Shafestbury Memorial; the figure points down Shafestbury Avenue. This Christmas, the statue is surrounded by a snowglobe that contains 'snow' blowing around inside of it. 

Eros snowglobe

Eros snowglobe

Up the road in Leicester Square, a Christmas funfair has been set up with a carousel, a ferris wheel, and several games and food kiosks. 

Leicester Square Christmas

Leicester Square Christmas

Trafalgar Square's decorated up for Christmas with the usual large Christmas tree. 

Trafalgar Square Christmas tree

Christmas trees for sale in east London

Last year, Lego created an advent calendar out of Lego bricks and installed it at Covent Garden for the public to enjoy throughout December; each day, a Lego window in the advent calendar was opened to reveal a Christmas item made out of Lego bricks. (My blog entry about it is here: Lego Advent Calendar in Covent Garden.) This year, Lego returned to Covent Garden in London with a large snow globe filled with London buildings that the public could walk around and inside in order to admire.

Lego snow globe featuring London's iconic buildings

The wintery London scene was created using 120,000 Lego bricks. Visitors to the snow globe can also count the red Santa figures in the scene and post their answer on the social media website. Apparently, the snow globe could blow the snow around, but this was not working when I visited it, and all of the fake snow was at the bottom.

Lego London Eye, Millennium Dome (the O2), and the Shard

Lego buildings

The iconic Lego buildings included the Shard, Big Ben, the Gherkin, Covent Garden, the Globe theatre, Nelson's Column, Battersea Power Station, the London Eye, Buckingham Palace, St. Paul's Cathedral,  the O2, and cable car towers.

A view of the snow globe

This was the last weekend to enjoy the Lego snow globe in Covent Garden. Today was the first chace that I had to see it, and the weather was not the best with the rain, but many others were also out to enjoy the attraction and to count the red Santa Lego figurines. Due to the weather, I sadly wasn't able to get many photographs as the snow globe had droplets of water stuck to it, but the detail on the London buildings and the little figurines was well worth seeing.

Two girls enjoy the London Lego buildings inside the snow globe

I'm looking forward to seeing what Lego have in store for us in Covent Garden next Christmas. Last year was the advent calendar and the year before (in St. Pancras station) was a giant Lego Christmas tree. Will they come up with another interactive Lego Christmas or winter scene or a giant Lego Christmas sculpture of some sort?

At the end of November, I visited Frankenmuth in Michigan. This was approximately a four-and-a-half journey from my parents', and it marked the beginning of the Christmas season. Frankenmuth is a tourist town, and it has the largest Christmas shop in the world amongst other attractions. I spent about three days here. This is probably enough time to see nearly everything, though there are more attractions open in the summer - such as a riverboat and other boat tours. The river freezes in the winter, so these river tours are not available until spring.

Looking down the main street in Frankenmuth

One of the highlights was a horse carriage ride. The ride is set at a fixed price, and the carriage can accommodate up to four adults. (They say that up to six can fit in a carriage, but perhaps they mean children as well as adults.) We rode on the carriage at dusk and took advantage of seeing the beautiful Christmas lights. 

Horse-drawn carriage

One of the prettiest buildings in Frankenmuth is the Bavarian Inn. A clock tower rings a melody of bells at each quarter of an hour and wooden figures come out on display on the clock tower on the hour. The Bavarian Inn has several restaurants inside it and a large gift shop in the basement. 

Bavarian Inn

Bavarian Inn and clock tower

I had dinner at the Bavarian Inn one evening. The speciality seemed to be chicken dinners, which consisted of chicken and potato and gravy. The food on offer had a Germanic theme. For dessert, I had pumpkin ice cream.

Pumpkin ice cream

We were lucky with the weather in Michigan. The weather was cold, but we did not have any rain. 

Crab apples

The frozen river

The frozen river from the covered bridge

I walked across the covered bridge and got some photographs of the frozen river.

Covered bridge

Covered bridge

In addition to the Bavarian Inn, another restaurant (Zhender's) serves chicken dinners and is one of the largest restaurants with several dining rooms and shops and bakeries on the basement level. We also ate here one evening, and the dessert was especially nice: peppermint ice cream and a chocolate brownie.

Zhender's sign

Another place to eat in Frankenmuth is Tiffany's, an old-fashioned bar with beautiful lamps, stained-glass windows, wood paneling, and painted ceilings. The bar area on the floor even has ceramic tiles created into a trough; I'm assuming that this is easier to clean and any drinks that are spilled go down the drains in the trough. It is worth stepping inside for a drink or a meal to see the decor.

Tiffany's stained glass window

Interior of Tiffany's

Gift shops of many varieties and sweet shops (fudge, taffy, ice cream and so on) are in abundance. In many shops, you can watch fudge being made and taffy being made.

Taffy being made

Frankenmuth has a brewery and a couple of wineries. In one shop, chocolates and wines can be paired together and bought. The company also operate small boat trips and a chocolate-and-wine-tasting boat trip. If it had been spring or summer, I would have gone on this. However, the chocolate-and-wine-tasting is available in the winter. 

Chocolate and wine sampling

Christmas decorations and wreath outside a shop

Christmas-themed cupcakes

Iced Christmas sugar cookies

The Cheese Haus is a popular shop. The shop has free samples, and visitors can try and buy chocolate cheese.

Cheese Haus sculpture

Cheeses

Another attraction in Frankenmuth is the Michigan Military and Space Museum. The museum contains stories about different soldiers (pilots, nurses, and so on) in one of the different wars from World War I to the war in Afghanistan. The museum shows items used by these people and also contains the largest display of medals. The people had all come from or lived in Michigan at some point.

Tank outside the Michigan Military and Space Museum

Christmas tree

Christmas lights

On the first night, Frankenmuth's River Place shopping area hosted an evening of candle-lit Christmas carols, free cookies, and hot chocolate to kick off the holiday season. 

Candle carol ceremony

I hope that you have enjoyed my photographs of Frankenmuth.

This year's Christmas window displays in London tie in with the branding of the company and also tie in with traditional Christmas. I felt that this year's window displays were more interesting than the previous year's. I have taken a few photographs of Selfridge's, John Lewis, and the Liberty department store windows in London.

Selfridge's department store focused on traditional Christmas scenes, such as those miniature holiday villages that some put up over the holidays, with a twist. The scenes feature small people (elves and Santas) in a setting with model houses and trains and a larger-than-life product placement. For example, a large shoe or pair of headphones or a brand name purse is amongst the setting. I've photographed some of the window displays to show below.

The corner window display at Selfridge's, which is the most interesting, contains a village made out of gingerbread and a train made out of vintage packaging. 

The Liberty department store window displays feature several products, such as these colour-coded products.

John Lewis's window displays followed their advertising this year with their well-received bear and hare commercial (http://www.johnlewis.com/inspiration-and-advice/az-of-christmas/bear-and-hare). The window displays feature the woodland creatures made out of items sold at the store, such as birds made from scissors and a brown bear made from baskets and pillows and a fox made out of cleaners.

This year's window displays are certainly creative.

The Christmas season in London has arrived for 2013, and as usual, there are many decorations and Christmas lights. This year, Oxford Street has new Christmas lights that are shaped in round balls and purple-blue in colour. Last year, Marmite sponsored the Christmas lights with an interactive display on Oxford Street. I prefer this year's decorations on Oxford Street, even though they simple and not as imaginative as the Marmite tie-in with social media and technology.

This year, the Marks and Spencer store on Oxford Street replaced their Christmas lights with several flowery lights on the corner of their store. These were pretty, but they seemed more summery than wintery to me.

Selfridges also went out to add their lights to their shop front as well as decorations above the main door on Oxford Street.

Carnaby Street also invested in new Christmas decorations this year. Last year, their Christmas lights had a rock and roll music theme which tied into the street's rock 'n' roll history in the 1960s. This year, the designers of the lights went to the birds with bright red robins and encouraged visitors to use Twitter. I have enjoyed the Carnaby Street decorations for the past few years as they are always creative.

The Liberty department store's decorations were similar as previous years with Christmas trees upon the timber-framed side and a purple glow.

Regent Street had the same Christmas lights as last year's with the 'Twelve Days of Christmas' theme.

However, around Oxford Circus, the lights advertised 'Mr. Peabody and Sherman', which is a film coming out in 2014, and these covered up some of the 'Twelve Days of Christmas' boards immediately around Oxford Circus.

Additionally this year, some of London's iconic red buses contain a lit-up "Christmas is coming" message, which is sponsored by Sky.

Boots' shop in the middle of Oxford Street has new Christmas lights this year. I do not remember seeing Christmas lights on their shop before, unless they were strands of white lights perhaps. Their lights look festive.

St. Christopher's Place off of Oxford Street has replaced their brightly-coloured metallic giant baubles with white snowflake giant baubles this year.

I always enjoy seeing the Christmas lights in London every year, and it's worth going to see the window displays as well if you do not mind the crowds. I went on a weeknight, and although it was busy, I did not feel it was particularly unbearable.