Christmas in London

While the days are getting shorter, and the temperature is dropping, there is definitely one perk to this winter business – Christmas!

 

We weren’t sure how we were going to find it this Christmas, considering Christmas is usually tipples on the beach or around the pool, wearing thongs and wishing the turkey in the oven would stop making the house so bloody hot. Maybe it’s because we’ve watched Home Alone so many times (or for my brother and sister ‘Jingle All the Way!’) but the cold weather is actually very Christmassy!

 

On November 8^th the Regent and Oxford St lights went up, and it’s only gotten better from there. The shop windows, markets and decorations in London are amazing. At the City of Bunbury, it’s impossible to spend much money on decorations because you will always get the party poopers who say ‘you spent all that money on decorations but the footpath on Carey Street needs upgrading’. In London, the footpaths are death-traps but the decorations look fabulous. I like the way they prioritise!

 

So far we’ve experienced Christmas in London, Manchester and Liverpool – but London wins hands down.

 

Things we’ve loved about London at Christmas:

• The Christmas lights on Regent and Oxford Street. This year they were sponsored by a Pixar movie, which is what the advertising in the middle is. Last year they were sponsored by Marmite, which would have made for cool photos.
• The shop windows at Selfridges. Each window was a work of art. I think I might have found my dream job. I realise it’s seasonal, but that’s fine as my doggy day-care centre will keep me afloat for the other 10 months of the year.
• All the real Christmas trees for sale, from huge to mini! They smell so good. Dad – there are such things as mini-ones so you don’t need to hire a SkipBin every January!
• Mistletoe for sale at the Christmas markets
• Spiced cider and mulled wine at the Christmas markets. Favourite memory of Christmas so far – Brian buying a new jacket, and then a cup of mulled red wine, and then tripping up the stairs and throwing the whole thing on himself. I saw the whole thing happen in slow motion.
• Patting two reindeer at Covent Garden, and getting to feed them along with 50 other kids.
• Going ice skating at the Museum of Natural History (Brian’s first time skating and he didn’t even fall!)
• Stumbling across the gorgeous Somerset House ice rink one night on the way home from the theatre.
• Going to a Christmas pantomime production of Peter Pan, starring the Fonz as Captain Hook! Although pantos are for kids, it was hilarious and included a lot of adult humour and we had such a good time. Brian ate too many chocolate coins and felt sick – who says we have to behave like grown-ups?
• Getting Christmas post! My parents gift arrived in November, and it was torture knowing that there was whipped peanut butter in a box under my bed that I couldn’t open until Christmas! In contrast, Brian’s parents made us open theirs early –lucky, as it contained a ham, venison and some salmon (amongst other delicious perishable items!)
• Christmas ads on TV – for the best ones, YouTube John Lewis Christmas ads
• Having Christmas day at Megan and Cousy’s in Richmond, cooking, drinking, playing Monopoly and watching the Queens speech. All very British. Even though the monopoly was the Scottish version.
• Seeing the giant Norwegian Christmas Tree in Trafalgar Square
• Exploring the German Christmas Markets on the Southbank, selling wooden toys, rum-spiked hot chocolate, roasted chestnuts and wieners.
• Making my first gingerbread house with my flatmate Emma. The whole house smells delicious

While this blog entry makes Christmas in London sound awesome, there is one obvious hole in the masterplan – and that’s all the people we love. Wishing everyone back home a very merry Christmas – we miss and love you very much.

Merry Christmas – here’s my favourite Christmas Cracker joke so far this year:

Two aerials got married – the ceremony was good but the reception was rubbish.

Ho ho ho

Kobi & Brian

xxx

The reindeer at Covent Garden

Feeding the reindeer

Covent garden decorations

 

In the sleigh!

At the Southbank markets. This is the mulled wine Brian threw on himself.

The little shop selling real trees on the way to the gym

With my cousin Megan

Ice skating at the museum of Natural History rink

The Selfridges windows! Works of art!

Selfridges - these windows are huge and the displays are ginormous

 

Selfridges

Selfridges

 

Mini people skiing in playdoh, Selfridges

Somerset House ice rink

Christmas markets in Leicester Square

 

Snowman antics

Dog in a hoody!

The Fonz as Captain Hook at the pantomime we went to

Regent Street lights (my view when I walk home from work each day)

Oxford Street lights

Standard signage during December!

Mistletoe!

Southbank Christmas markets

 

Museum of Natural History ice rink

Harrods

 

Our gingerbread house

 

With Brian, Megan and Cousy for Christmas Day

 

Brian with his keg, not the best first pour!

 

Brian and Cousy making mulled wine

The queens speech

The view of the Thames from Meg and Cousy's place

Warner Brothers Studio: The Making of Harry Potter

There is probably no better Christmas gift for someone brought up on Harry Potter than tickets to Warner Brother Studios The Making of Harry Potter. Two tickets magically (see what I did there?) appeared in our letterbox 2 weeks ago, and we were so excited to see that Brian's family had given two Potter nerds the best surprise ever! So today we headed out to Leavesden (North London) to see where Harry, Ron and Hermione spent 10 years making the best movies ever.

After overcoming an early obstacle (to get your tickets you have to show ID and Anthony booked our tickets under BrianKobi Gingberts haha!), we were in! We spent the next two hours going through the real sets, seeing the actual costumes and props used, and learning all the behind the scenes secrets of Harry Potter. It was so awesome. A huge thank you to the Gings and Vennitti's for the present, we loved it! I'll let the photos do the talking!

 

Later muggles,

Kobi & Brian

The cupboard under the stairs...

The Great Hall all dressed up for Christmas. 

The Great Hall dining tables, and the first Hogwarts uniforms ever worn by Harry, Ron and Hermione

The hour classes that count the house points for Slytherin, Ravenclaw, Gryffindor and Hufflepuff

The teachers table in the Great Hall, with original costumes

 

Original costumes, wigs and props

Gryffindor dormitory

Ron's bed, with Harry's in the background

The Gryffindor common room - Sirius Black's face appeared in this fireplace!

 

The potions classroom. The props team filled over 1000 jars with 'ingredients' such as herbs and leaves. But when they ran out of herbs to use, they would go to the butcher and ask for bones and off cuts, and preserve them in jars of liquid. Eww. All the potions scenes when Snape was teaching were filmed in this room, which is surprisingly small and actually about 3 steps away from Hagrids hut.

 

Dumbledores office - just outside is shot were glass cabinets full in trinkets all moving around, including the pensieve where he stored his thoughts. The walls were also full of portraits of ex headmasters asleep, eating etc. 

 

This tour definitely made quidditch look less extreme! All the broomsticks are mounted on a machine that moves, against a green screen.

 

The Weasleys kitchen at The Burrow, complete with self chopping knife and self washing frypan.

Ollivanders wand shop, Diagon Alley

Diagon Alley set

4 Privet Drive, Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunias house

While a whole set of Hogwarts doesn't exist, there is a model built which is the size of a huge room. They used this model to do all the aerial shots - you can see the rails on the roof where the cameras roll over. Every detail is to scale (albeit a tiny scale!) and it was covered in snow when we were there. It was pretty amazing!

 

 

Hogwarts covered in snow

 

Choosing my wand from Ollivanders (even though you don't choose the wand, the wand chooses you!)

 

Brian with a butterbeer. If anyone wants to know what it tastes like, it's cold, fizzy butterscotch-flavoured soft drink, and it has this weird creamy layer on the top like when you make an icecream spider. I thought it was gross but Brian loved it.